Medical college blues...

This is an unedited version of a letter my sister sent me recently. (Unedited except for the identity of my latest crush and yes, why I want to blow BIT up). She wrote it for THiNK, hoping that I would convert it into some sort of story. I don't have time. She's 8 months into her MBBS course. The letter follows:

Dearest Chechi,

I’m sorry I was so late sending this thingy. How are you? Do you still feel like blowing up the place? Sometimes life is boring, you just have to bear with it.

You asked me to describe the first few months in medical college. You know I ‘m not much of a writer or an observer, still. When it comes to memories, dissection table would be the most distinct. After the first dissection, we felt so sick. We had lunch break right after dissection. Most of us used to miss lunch the first few days…coz after spending time with the cadaver it was impossible for us to swallow anything. (Note that we are not allowed to use hand gloves so that we got over the disgust and we also got the real feel.) Its funny, coz nowadays, it’s dissection that seems to stimulate my appetite. Weird how things just become a part of your life I remember how we used to wash our hands with Dettol and God knows what else before we used our hands for anything, now who’s got the time? It was weird standing in front of a naked body especially after studying for 10 years in a girls’ school. Thankfully we had two classes to get accustomed to the situation. I guess our Profs sensed our discomfort. Tsk! Tsk! A guy was the only person who fainted in our batch. That shows the power of today’s girls! (Chechi, just some of my own feminist crap). The first day we opened our dissection box, the scalpel, the blade with which we mercilessly tear open the bodies (it’s real sharp), fell on a girl’s foot. Soon we got accustomed to these minor mishaps; most organs were not a problem. But when we did external genital organ, I still remember the guys gasping when the penis was cut. When we took out the testis from the scrotum, I felt really disgusted. I never took the trouble to hold it and find the anatomical position…n guess what??? I got it for my internals. I was forced to hold it. I guess a Doctor just has to know something of EVERYTHING.

Nothing however would rival the shock I got was when I realized that we had to get our own real bone set, not plaster of paris, but a real person’s bone, and everyone was telling me about how difficult it is to get it. Why all the stressing on a real bone set you may ask. Apparently, every individual’s bones are unique and there are certain contours and properties of real bones that synthetic substitutes can never perfectly reproduce. Back to my story, sometime later this real scary guy came up to me, he looked real creepy. He was trying to sell bones on campus and was milling with the outpatient crowd to avoid being noticed. He was ready to sell a bone set for 1000 Rs. You should have seen the bones! They were fresh! I mean they had a little bit of flesh on them. Damn scary, real bones, like they just popped out of this horror movie show or something. And I, carried away by that new feel of being independent, guess you lose your senses in the battle to prove yourself, bargained for 800. But my friends told me not to buy it coz it was fresh or something like that. So after all that mindless bargaining I told the guy I wasn’t going to buy it…and the guy started crying. His soulless, grey eyes were actually filled with tears. Guess everyone has feelings. Later, my friends told me he was a grave digger. I was petrified-the real world of medicine exposed in all its gory details. To save a life, we take another person’s dear ones remains…sad…and I bargain for it. I felt like crap. It suddenly forced itself on me, like an immense burden, how man has to go to the extremes, just to survive. He forgets everything. Even I forgot in the heat of being a good medical student. I sort of hated myself then. But now, I have become insensitive to such things. I carry the bones of some person in my bag whenever I go for osteo class, sleep off with them on my bed. Guess it’s a part of being a doctor.

Recently we learnt about the skull. And I was listening in class as usual, answering anything I knew (which was not often), when sir brought a foetus skull. You should see it, it’s so small. The bones are not ossified. You could really see what a delicate thing it was. It was so sad, a mother’s hope, her greatest dream…still-born. And here it is - a specimen for us at the embryology lab. There are all kinds of specimens here, kept soaked in formalin, for us to study. They are all so cute, you couldn’t possibly believe anything was wrong with them, but yes they were still-born. A mother’s 9 month long wait and just one of the many specimens in every medical college. It’s pathetic really. To save lives, for medicine to go on, we have to become so ruthless, so insensitive. But without it, there would never be medicine coz you can never understand without seeing. It’s just not about mugging up. It’s another one of those paradoxes in life that you can’t explain.

But it’s not that bad. We get to see every guy in our batch bare chest, not something you get in every college. I still remember how shocked we were when the tutors asked us if any of the guys were ready to strip up to the waist for us to study. I mean we were like: What was she up to? And the worst was when she asked each one of us to come up and feel for the apex beat. It was really weird. It was like they get a free massage in exchange for stripping. But now whatever, every other person is just a subject. Who cares! (Except for the fact that I screwed up my percussion during the exams) It’s fun in a way.

And you won’t believe it, every week I prick my finger more than three times just to get the blood and test it. I hated the idea. Pricking my delicate fingers. Some of my friends haven’t been able to get over it yet. You see, we even shed our blood to get through these five years and become the so called doctors. And as if that wasn’t enough, we need another ten years to be able to practice. But the good part is- it’s fun all the way. Why? Coz we deal with people. Real people. And you just realize how unique each human being is. Not just character-wise but also anatomically - the arteries, the nerves, the veins, the organs, everything is so different. No two specimens are identical. And you have to be so careful. It’s amazing. You actually start thinking: Can Science explain everything? There is something supernatural about life that defies comprehension.

Whenever we go to the college there is a shortcut through the leprosy center. Most of the residents have recovered fully and yet no one has come to reclaim them. As we go by, they just look at us, passing through the center to the college, waiting, to see if someone would come for them someday, someone they can call their own. I’m so lucky to have everyone. And sometimes I think I am real lucky to belong to this generation, a generation without prejudices like the one before. Then again, I think maybe I’m fooling myself, maybe we’re just a generation with a whole new set of prejudices.

The psychiatry and alcohol rehab center is another place we have to cross always on our way to college. I remember when Sameetha was walking by one day, one of its inmates called out "Hello sister! On your way back, get me a pack of cigarettes." They used to call us by all kinds of names when we walked by, hoping we would respond. It was like try your luck. If you hit, you get a girl to look back at you (mostly in fear / anger / annoyance), otherwise you have nothing to lose. For us, it was our silent zone. We used to be so quiet while crossing these areas. Now they know us by name, and we are the least bothered, after all, we are all humans. In fact, Sameetha got her first and only proposal from one of the inmates. It’s sad how life can just slap you right across the face. Whenever we walk, we get flattering comments like- you look so pretty, and I love you and what not. It must be so difficult to be stuck behind those rails. Only they know what they are going through, and boy! How desperate they must be. It’s sad and, I must confess, funny at the same time.

The best part of my first year would be, when I finished just one month of MBBS and I went home for vacations, our domestic help came up to me with her lab reports, asking for my opinion on the case. I just stared at it the X-ray and the blood tests results. And I am like, what in the world is going on?! It was still Greek and Latin to me. Then I go like what the doctor said was absolutely right. (Sophisticated nod plus grave raised eyebrow) AND she surprisingly agreed, when I didn’t even ask her what the doctor said.

It’s so funny how people think that less than one year of MBBS is more than enough to make me a super specialist in every subject in the medical world, even better than the super specialist he/she is visiting, who has spent more than 20 yrs dedicated to the subject.

My first few anatomy classes felt like entering foreign territory –phalanges, superolateral, nasion, cerebrohematoma, shentons line. I never used to follow a word. It took me 2 whole months just to get used to the lingo. These days, I see how the interns come in the morning after working the entire day, just to see that there is no food left. And I keep thinking, that’s me in five yrs. No food! I can’t even imagine the situation. Oh well! From here to there there’s still five years. On the whole I am so happy where I am. I love my college, my batch, my friends, everything! It’s a profession I am sure I will love. It’s tough, requires a lotta determination and focus but I think its fun at the same time. You feel you’re doing something useful, important, relevant. And I hope that this belief stays for the next five years.

Love
Nandhu