From Daga to Haaga - One year down the line.......
7/01/2012 03:05:00 am
After an extension of 2months our housemanship has finally ended. Thanks to the “stalwarts” conducting the “prestigious” CET’s we have had the” privilege” of working as a houseman for an extra 2months.Only a houseman knows how desperately he anticipates the arrival of the new batch (“365 aur 405 din housemanship karne ka difference tum kya jano ramesh babu”). We are now ready to hand over the baton of “huge responsibilities” to our “able” juniors!
So how does it feel to enter second
year PG? It feels great. However it just “feels” great, it isn’t that great. The
feeling of “I am done with all the mama work,
and all I have to do is quality work “is just too good (again it’s just a
feeling and not the truth!) .But as Peter Parker has taught us “With great
power comes great responsibility”, second year has its own woes. It’s
like having too much of responsibility with too less of power! First year flew
in no time and we were too busy rejuvenating ourselves after the CET
preparation that we didn’t FIND enough time to open our books (Retrospectively I
would say we never really SEARCH hard enough).First year is like an
extended honeymoon period. We are elated after clearing the swayamvar of the “prestigious “ CET (which is more
gruesome than the one with Rakhi)and getting “engaged” the seat of our choice.
So we bask in the glory, showing off our “prized catch” although only until the
tragedy called the second year strikes. We are suddenly expected to know
everything overnight and as we are still busy in our honeymoon, cuddling with
our darling; this comes as a harsh wake-up call which we can’t snooze. What
follows is a series of comments from our seniors and professors.”Itna bhi nahi ata “,”junior ko kya sikhayega”,”First
year mein kya kiya”(this last question haunts me now and I am still trying
to find an answer.) And all the above
comments (and ALL other comments too) come with a prefix of “Are ek saal ho gaya toh bhi-“.These
anguishes don’t end with the people above in the hierarchy, the juniors too
play a part in our misery. They are excited after their triumph and come up
with “we-must-know-by-the-end-of-one-year” types questions (exactly as we did
14 months ago).But we always have the ultimate escape route for such questions
, the “raamban ilaaj” which is being
used for years .As a senior, whenever you don’t know something you MUST know you
always have the option of saying “Kal
padhke bata .Read up and tell me tomorrow “.This works two ways either it
buys us time so that we can read up the same or we can just wait for the junior
to read up and enlighten us ,while we give the expression of “I knew it ,wanted
you to open your book. No spoon-feeding here.” During first year,“You are not
expected to know and you don’t know” ;Third year “ You are expected to know and
you know” ,unfortunately for second year “ You are expected and you don’t know”
But how does it feel to finish first
year? It not only feels great, it is. It was a fun filled ride. We are never “exposed”
to radiology as we are to Medicine and Surg. So when we prepare these two are
the broad categories we plan to do a PG in.To add to it ,getting radiology is not
the easiest of tasks so we can’t plan/boast of aspiring the same, especially
with the present pattern of our “prestigious” PGCET .It’s almost always the
second choice, atleast it was for me. After winning the swayamvar, it’s like the sexier and more elusive choice available,
which makes you ditch the Harrisons and Sabistons. And while Radiology eludes
you there are people who are skeptical about you choosing it. They try to
persuade/convince by claiming that it’s a non-clinic branch, no exposure to
patients etc. .Is it that way? I would say it all depends upon how clinical you
want it to be. You are supposed to know some clinical stuff from each branch,
be it Obstetrics, Medicine or Peds or Surg. The more you apply the clinical knowledge,
the radiology becomes much easier. Also you have always the option of
Intervention Radiology later. The thing that you miss is the work satisfaction
a surg/med housie gets when a patient thanks him after getting treated. But
remember we definitely played an important part by diagnosing the disorder in
the first place! Unlike the popular belief of “Radio people just sit in air-conditioned
rooms “, hum thoda toh kam definitely
karte hain yaar!
This one year has been a great learning experience,
though not academically but otherwise. Got the time to direct one of the best
Apurvai so far, have explored more places than what I did during my UG days and got hooked to reading books (other than those
purchased form Bhalani and National for a change).All said and done ,I am satisfied with
the decision made one year (sorry 14 months) ago.
P.S.
For all those who don’t know Daga is a book for PG preparation and Haaga is a
radiology book (The quest for a catchy title has made me come up with this.)Bhalani
and National are Medical book shops and Apurvai is our marathi college play.
P.P.S.
You may find many grammatical errors in the above and in ALL my previous and future other posts you
have the option of blaming Word’s spellcheck or my poor English. I prefer that
you be nice to me and choose the former!
