The Prince of Darkness..

Sept 06, 2007- the last post on this blog. its been a long time! A lot has happened since then. I have changed fractions from the loudmouthed surgeons to the quietly-resourceful, super-intelligent, frustrated-by-the-lack-of-common-sense-among-other-specialty-colleagues radiologists. as you can see i have managed the transformation quite smoothly. i am talking-the-talk and will be walking-the-walk from september 2009. As of now i am in that wierd in-between stage when i still have to do locums in orthopaedics. oh yess.....my life is complex. but a guy's gotta eat!!
Now sometimes I see myself as this hypocritical muppet who has been harping on about orthopaedics for the better part of the last 5 years- to friends, families and anything else that cant scream out in pain- only to jump the bandwagon over to radiology. I had many a alcohol- fuelled evenings when introspected..like never before, for the "causality of zis" (matrix!). Was it a classical case of practicality setting in..and realizing that orthopaedics was not meant to be? or was it that radiology was always my calling..and orthopaedics was just a small detour? the answer eludes me.
Anyway, now is not the time to look back and think twice. The path is chosen.....the dye is cast!! Anyone looking for me..I'LL SEE YOU IN THE DARK ROOM!!

in the quite of the night...

life has entered into a dull monotony. "friendsfromshield" is now "friendfrombrough". "anuroda anuroda" potters around birmingham and its suburbs. my life begins at 0630 hrs and runs through its humdrums of wards, clinics and theatres until...god alone knows. sometimes im there till 2100 hrs. but thats the way life rolls. i thought i knew quite a bit about orthopaedics. but, i do feel stymied by this job. very coompetitive. none of my colleagues looks ready to buge an inch. i guess this is where the real competition starts.

reading is a must to keep up to date. else i fear im gonna lose out. time is always short the days shoudl have 34 hours or something like that. i guess i would still feel that time was short. work piles on..and teh "feelgoodfactor" seems to be fading away.

evry night i sit at home wonddering what i could do today..but it never seesm enough. decided to indulge in sports medicine as a further degree. james' idea. lets see.

alone at home..in the quiet of the night....

Picture... The jewels and the shield...War it is
Some people and societies are,by their very nature,peaceful and harmonious.These are the beings who meditate on the nature of the self, create beautiful art and architecture,and write timeless literature.They are the shining JEWELS of creation.No amount of dust and mud slung at them can obscure their intrinsic luminesence.
There are other creatures, of sloth and indolence, at whose core is the cesspool of belligerence and artifice.They are the mostly harmful feel-bads who roam our society in the garb of harmless feelgoods.
Now a time comes when the web of deceit and subterfuge spun by the above mentioned specimens becomes so strong that it becomes imperative for the peaceful bejewelled beings to arise, awake and in a swift swipe rid the good earth of these dark designs.
In every age such rakshashas trouble the good and the pious, and are ultimately dispatched by the power of virtue.
Such a war is currentle on, eagerly being witnessed by millions of fascinated onlookers. The precious family jewels of the good friend from shields have been publicaly affronted by a demon who trolls this blog. A troll who equates relaxation and beatific solitude with exploring the netherlands.
His inspiration is an adenoid facied Rasputin who held the world record for playing a pocket video game while exploring all his body orifices digitally at the same time.
The gentle people of Shields will not tolerate the JEWELS to come to harm. We shall not go silently into the night...We shall give them a tremendous fight.
The testiculo pruritic fascists will soon realize who's the boss.
Menwhile the jewels of shields shine on, bright(and unblemished)as ever
Vande Mataram

war of the world! (not world war..please..)

unknown to most people....using web blogs, and those not using them as well,...a war rages!! it is one of those kinds that does not meet the eye at first sight. by the time one knows of its existence iy would have ravaged past this "one" and left in its wake a path of death doom, destruction, sculdgery, back stabbing, deceipt and most of all, would leave two greats of this century, to spend the better part of their time on blogs roaming the "netherworld".

What? what "netherworld"?.."one" might ask.(persisitent bugger..this "one"). well its one that is worse than that roamed by demons and described in testaments predicting the great apocalypse!

While wars are waged between two entities (nations/ people/ territories/ ttribes..etc) who are in open to declaring their involvement in it. The first entity says "what ho..and all that....what ..what..come now..i think ill declare war now!" . to which the other says- "eh! whats this dastardly thing u say about war and all that. do u think ill take it lying down...heavens no! ill declare war on u too!". and so the story goes..

Now this particular war is one of epic proportions. it can be likened a lot to the "proxy war" that was waged in J &K. ..or still i s, for that matter. neither parties is willing to come out of teh "netherworld". For the sake of dignity, the sweet smell of victory..and the thought of inflicting pain on the other party, these two waring fractions are prepared to resign themselves to the netherworld that is "the web log comment site".

For a good 4 days now "friendfromshields" and "feelgoodfactor" have been waging this proxy war in the region of the web log comment site. neither party is willing to rise up to the real world of web log posts. Neithe ris interested in fighting and winning gloriously. each has only one objective in mind....Total and Utter Destruction of the other party!!

Such wars are highly spoken of.....epics are written about them. This particular war is being fought over the bedangled, precious "jewels" of the friendfromshields clan. a lot of mud has been slung at them. a lot of nails have scratched them...sometimes by traitors from within the clan. but the jewels still "dangle". in all their glory and pride...they dangle..like thy have never dangled before. for such is the greatness of the famed "jewels of shields".

enough has been said about them already. it is now time to watch the two heroes ("parties" not "jewels") in action. For live coverage..watch the comments section of the previous blog..i say!!

Dear occam....

once again its 1 a.m on a night shift and i sit here in this musty old doctors office...my refuge haven from the bickering nurses on the cardiothoracic ward, who get concerned about each and every thing that changes in the patients status, hoping for some peace and quiet. evry night ..or morning..i come into this office hoping to spend some quality time..studying..and evry one of these times i end up justifyng to myself why i should go to sleep right now, before the bleep goes off again. there is a constant struggle between my conscience and my alter ego, like something out of a tom & jerry cartoon, where the devil and the angel sit on either of the shoulders of tom or jerry, and convince them into doing something. the only good part about this violent tete-a- tete is the fact that i always win. every night before sleeping i plan the next morning down to the last second so i can optimise this "studying time" of mine. and evryday the plan goes awry..and everyday i return for another night duty..and sit in this musty old doctors office..and dive into the "argument"...everyday..every fucking day!

the exam draws nearer. evry exam i sit i hope wil be approached in a way better than the way we approached exams in college. but with every passing exam its the same story..sometimes even worse. and surprising part is that i have passed each and everyone of them...yet feel i should have studied more. same debate this time as well.

anyway ending my nights tomorrow. hoping to put my head down and study hard over the weekend. but again knowing me...i might mess it up as well. does this ever happen to you?

its just another night....

another night dawns. the fourth in a series of seven. almost there. keep going. geenrally the end of nights marks something really nce. u get a monday off after the weekend. u can plan a trip to meet a friend. go somewhere and hibernate till tuesday. life ..in that moment..is good. ive always wanted to go for a good 3-4 days to stay with one of my friends..in thi splace called southshields..up north in UK. i like the way this friends relaxes. just lazing away. watching tv. scratching his balls (no i dont like watching him do it..just would like to spend my own time doing it to myself), watching hindi television. that is my idea of a good relaxing vacation. in my case after my nights i have to really pick up pace and start studying....really hard. my exams are due in october. its the final part and all that jazz.

another thing ive noticed , when im on nights is that i write on this blogsite with increased frequency. i guess it helps to wind down between stressful shifts. but surprisingly..not one of the other 4 members have written on the site in the last 2 months. and some havent written for god knows how long. sometimes i wonder why i even bother writing. anyway..here goes.....

evry night in cardiothoracic surgery is on efilled with trepidation. reminds of the time istarted my first set of night shifts inortho at coventry. it was a big place. quite busy as well. but then with every subsequent night i started to feel more and more settled and comfortable. slowly getting confident with evry decision i make. then cardiothoracic surgery happened. its not that i dont get the subject. evrything is so closely monitored that u cant say stuff like "start the patient on some oxygen, start some fluids i will review her..".here if u ask for some fluids to be started ..they will bleep u in an hours time to tell u what the blood pressure is doing and ask what u want done next. so until u actually sort stuff out and make sure the patient is stable..there is no rest. every dayas i walk into teh hospital at 7.55 pm i feel my gut twisting and turning around on itself and my bladder wants to go right that moment...even if i have pee'd just ten minutes ago. u neevr know what lies ahead. patients deteriorate ina matter of minutes. well luckily i am slowly getting the hang of this as well. the measuring if cvp's, arterial lines, ventilation modes and all that jazz. so it isnt all that bad.

anyway its just 2 more nights after this one. i think im entitled to at least on eday when im just relaxing...no? lets see. i sure ill be too tensed up to want to relax. time will tell!

good night and good luck!

ill tell u the moral of this story in the very beggining ..will make life easier for all of us involved. DONT GET INTO A FIGHT WITH YOUR WIFE WHEN U R ON A NIGHT SHIFT!

i have learnt something today. whenever u r on night duties..be extra careful and extra nice to your wife. dont ever get in to a squabble with her. i made the midstake of getting into one yesterday evening. well it was nothing serious ....just the regular, run of the mill squabble as is wont in a healthy marital relationship. in fact it was a bit overdue. well the long and short of it...at the end of our violent conversation (u know how violent these little squabbles can get) she cursed me..i mean literally cursed me that i would have the worst night shift ever. well not in as many words..but she didnt say the usual "hope u have a good 'un" (okay .....i am a little sensitive). its the same thing. wel i didnt give it much thought then because it was said in a typical housewife tone..though my wife is not a house wife....almost in the same way housewives say that the skies have fallen upon them if the vegetable vendor makes his daily round five minutes late.

came on for my night duty. had a couple of poorly patients. sorted them out. put in a couple of intravenous cannulas. life wa going smoothly until it was 1 a.m. the neurosurgical registrar called and said there weer two patients to admit and mange in teh accident and emergency. the cardiothoracic ward called to say that one of the critical patients was getting even more critical. ward 21 called to say that a patient had been transferred from telford and needed to be admitted. and ..my cup of sorrrow overfloweth!

the age old housewife curse came true..again. so for all you married guys pursuing a career in medicine and preparing to start a week of night duties..beware..be catious..do not get into any sort of squabble with ur better half (keep calling her that). maintain composure and compliment levels throughout this week of yours. hoping this will help ease the pain of many brethren across the world.....good night and good luck!!

coffee and toast...

i never quite liked coffee. ever since i moved to uk and started working nights in the NHS i have been caught endless times ...not having had dinner,,and feeling hungry by 1 am ..on the dot. by a fantastic coincidence that same day is when the nurses will decide to order a takeaway..something chinese or "curry" ! the takeaway arrives by 10 pm.....when its too late for u to order urs...and u have too much ego to share theirs...u fuckin' twat!!
then its two a.m....and u cancontrol the hunger no more..so u look around..in pantries oon different wards..in garbage bins...in vending machines....and all u find is bread, a toaster, butter (loads of it...thats the "good news" of it) and coffe machine that uses gravy powder instead of coffee. so what can u make ..at 2 in the morning..out of the aforementioned ingredients..yes..coffee and toast!
So u burn up a couple of toasts,,spread some butter on it.....let it mellllttt....and brew up some gravy ...or coffee..whatever makes u happy. there are very few moments of satisfaction in this job...but coffee and toasts at two in the morning is definitely one of them.

and life drags on....

its the weekend now. well friday late afternoon is "the weekend" actually. i like friday late afternoons. its that time of th eweek when u have the whole weekend to yourself..lying ahead of you..with potential so vast and unfathomable..that the mind boggles to come to terms with it. the whole of friday evening...the whole of saturday....and the whole of sunday!! it feels like eternity. im still on duty (physically that is!) but the mind has wandered off..already planning all the things i coul ddo over this weekeend. relax thewhole of todayevening. sip some wine...enjoy a bubble bath....WAIT ....thats something a girl would do! id go to the local pub..which incidentally is the roughest pub around...and go have a couple of pints with mates!! (thats better). then i woul dbet up early on saturday and make sure all the domestic chores are done. of course then put ina couple of hours of studying. before making lunch. then, a short afternoon siesta.... followed by some more intense studying. i could sneak in a movie in the evening. once do all of this over again on sunday. my god that IS efficient!!

but u just know...after 25 years of experience...after 25 years of having planned countless free weekends down to the last millisecond....that by the time u finish even planing ur weekend...sunday late evening will be upon u. u look back at ur weekend and realise that all u did do was lie around and drink beer. well u might also have mustered up enough courage to go watch a movie..but thats about it!

infinite weekends...infinite times....u would think by now i would have realised the folly of it all and come to terms with it. but no....its the same everytime.
i guess i enjoy planning weekends more than i enjoy enjoying them!! what about u?

Digression #365

A digression a day keeps the doctors at bay... Quite an apocryphal (not to mention bordering on the insanely dangerous) thing to say on a blog where four out of five contributors are doctors... But what with the blog in question being called Mostly Harmless, and what with three of the last four posts being DIY fracture repair tutorials (which, by the way, as a train of thought, is most certainly not harmless- not by a mile) and sordid accounts of a lonely frustrated doctor on night duty in distant Telford (or is it shropshire/ shrewsbury, I forget) I thought a digression was in order to restore the teensiest semblance of harmlessness on this here neck-o-the-woods (or maybe, if you're a stickler for correctness, byte-of-the-information-super-ether)...

So here you have it- your daily dose of digression (getting alliterative, you see) courtesy of the guy with the fun life back in mother country... Though, in my opinion, the bit about 'fun' is debatable to say the least...

Oh, and the boring doctor from Telford celebrates his birthday tomorrow. A different tomorrow from mine, of course. A good five and a half hours different.