Dr Rajiv Desai
An Educational Blog
THE DEATH
THE DEATH Prologue: As a student of medicine, since I joined medical college in the year 1978, I have been a witness to death either in the form of dissecting a dead body or declaring someone dead. The dissecting cadaver (corpse) is a critical component of every medical education. Without the anatomical understanding of the human body that is afforded by dissection, much of modern medicine would simply not exist. I also remember a very difficult task of informing a crying mother that her only son died of poisoning. Hundreds of patients have died before me in my experience as a doctor. Many times my junior doctors have expressed apprehension of declaring someone dead because they were afraid that patient may still be alive and I used to teach them signs of death like unconsciousness, no response to any stimulus, no breathing, no pulse and no heart beat on […]
THE LIE
THE LIE: Prologue: When you read a newspaper or watch television, you find that the media always talk about Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe who died childless in the year 1962 but nobody in media talks about her only real son who lives in India in oblivion for last 5 decades. How can so many educated & cultured, editors & anchors lie to the people everyday? Why should they lie? My ex-wife was lying before police, court and media. Why? Police questions suspects, accused and witnesses to elicit the truth but the truth is that all criminals always lie during interrogation and even after conviction by court of law; criminals say that they are innocent and framed by state. When an accused in police custody is brought to me for chest pain, I think about heart problem but the investigating officer believes that the accused is lying to escape from […]
MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
MEDICAL PROFESSION VERSUS CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT:(DOCTOR V/S CPA): As a qualified doctor of 20 years experience,I am a better person to comment on this controversial issue.At the outset,I want to say that I deplore CPA and condemn criminal charge of negligence against a doctor. 1)The relationship between a doctor and a patient is a matter of faith and trust and CPA destroys this pious relationship. 2)There was a time when a doctor was considred next to the God because of his ability to relieve human suffering and this respect is destroyed by the notion of a doctor being looked upon as a grocery shop owner who gives treatment in return for money;thanks to CPA. 3)A human body has millions of biological variables and it is impossible for a humanbeing to know,how and why,all these biological variables will interact to produce a disease. 4)The Hippocratic Oath has become irrelevant in 21 […]
TERRORISM VERSUS FREEDOM FIGHT
TERRORISM VERSUS FREEDOM-FIGHT : Terrorism is defined as death and destruction of any innocent human being, intentionally, in order to achieve political goals. However,there is a considerable confusion in the world regarding the difference between terrorism and freedom-fight.No world leader has ever made any clear-cut distinction.So I have decided to make the distinction. When the world uses the word Freedom-Fight in political context,it means legitimate resistance and uprising against the colonial european invaders who occupied the lands of asia and africa forcibly;outside their own country;with the intention to enlarge their empire politically. Freedom-fight means resistance to occupation by foreign invaders who is trying to establish their colony outside their own country.During the resistance;if the innocent people of the invading country are killed in the occupied land;then;it is not terrorism. However;whatever is happening in Palestine and kashmir is not Freedom-fight.Israel and India are not colonial european invaders.Killing innocent civilians in Israel is […]
ALCOHOL
ALCOHOL: Today, I will discuss the most controversial topic for about 12000 years,namely, Alcohol.The alcohol is consumed by 80 % of people at some time in their lives. Alcohol or Ethanol or Ethyl Alcohol is defined as an organic compound composed of carbon,hydrogen and oxygen atoms with the molecular configuration as CH3CH2OH. I will not discuss other alcohols like methyl alcohol,propyl alcohol etc etc. The human beings have been consuming alcohol in various alcoholic beverages since 10000 year BC…. I wrote my thesis on alcohol in the year 1986 for my MD exam and concluded that the life-span of a heavy alcoholic is reduced by 12 years; and one out of six deaths in a government hospital is related to alcoholism.I was novice and naive then and the sample size of my study was limited. Whisky is a short form of usquebaugh where uisce means water and bethad means of […]
