Fingering

It is funny how perspectives change according to the situation.
A lot of perspectives change when you are a medical student.
I have learnt that – the hard way.

Being in medical college is pretty much the same as being in any other college.
At least it is for me.
You don’t really learn much.
Well, maybe you do – but at the end of the 4 and half years you seem to forget more than you remember resulting in a minimal increase in knowledge, if any.

I do not study in my state of origin.
I study in a state where people speak four different languages, out which i know one fluently.
And this has led to lots of trouble for me.
Most of the time, I end up using both my hands, legs and inexplicable facial expressions to communicate with the patients.
It is difficult when you know what you want to ask but don’t know how to ask it.
It makes you feel like a baby (if you remember being one) and it is not a nice sight to see a 20 year old woman make noises like goo goo and ga ga.
I hate babies, anyway.

I once wanted to ask a patient how long he was unconscious for during a faint attack.
It resulted in every patient in the ward pointing at me and laughing their hearts out.
I like to think I’m like Patch Adams at such times – it is easier on the little bit of self respect you have left.

This was before I started learning the language.
Now I know bits and pieces.
I can communicate.
The only problem is that I should make sure what I ask is what I actually mean to ask.
The last thing you want is to get slapped – and that is not too easy to avoid.

Well, this post is not about my linguistic woes.
It is about this incident which occurred in my 2nd year of medical school.

Surgery postings – I love everything about surgery.
I loved it even more after the extremely handsome Post Graduate let me (an absolute nobody in the hierarchy of medical school) assist him in a procedure.
Even though all I did was ‘mop’ the blood off (which I apparently didn’t do well) and even though the procedure was a mere ‘debridement of an ulcer’
- I felt like somebody!
That was when I decided I wanted to become a surgeon.

But this decision was put to doubt in a week.
It was O.P (out patient) day
– which meant two things to medical students:
1) If you are interested, be ready to jump at every opportunity (patient) that arrives. Stay as close to the patient as possible, at any cost – push, kick, chop, trample, bite – do whatever it takes.
2) If you are not interested stand in a corner. Do not ever, even by mistake risk your life by trying to get near a patient – let alone talk to one. If you do, the next thing you will remember is a horde of ‘extremely interested’ students plus doctors plus nosy patients trampling over what was once your body.

I was one among the first category, since my decision to become a surgeon.
The same extremely handsome Post Graduate came along and asked if anybody knew my mother tongue. They were jus two of us Keralites present that day.
He chose the guy over me.
I tagged along, anyway.
After taking his history with my fellow Keralite’s help the Post Graduate decided since Mr Kerala had helped he would let Mr Kerala do a PR.
The senior students audibly gasped.
And then the murmuring began.
It was as if Mr Kerala was not allowed this privilege.
They kept telling it was unfair.
And then I realised what a PR is (I’m pretty slow) – per rectal examination.
In other words, sticking your finger into the patient’s ass hole and checking if there is anything out of the ordinary in there.
That was the privilege bestowed upon Mr Kerala.

In went his gloved finger.
After a lot of probing, he told he felt something.
Obviously he would feel something – it is the guy’s shit hole for god’s sake!!
Out came his gloved finger.
Not the same colour as it went in.
You can’t mistake that shade of yellowish brown for anything else.

I wondered if the glove had a small tear somewhere.
I wondered how he could actually put his finger in somebody’s shit.
I wondered whether Mr Kerala felt like cutting off his finger.
I wondered what if I had helped the Post Graduate with the language problem.

This was the ‘privilege’ bestowed upon him.

Almost two years have passed since that day.
I have put my gloved finger into a couple of shit holes since then…
and lots of other orifices too.
And sometimes I have pushed and kicked my way into it.

Medical college is the same as any other college – almost.
But a lot of perspectives change here.
Sticking your finger into a persons shit hole is a privilege.