Campus Life
A day in resident’s life
Life in NIMHANS buzzes with activity everywhere, with the day starting early with us getting ready for case presentations with all our notes and print-outs of latest articles for consultants’ rounds and important individualized decisions and plans for every inpatient in the ward. The discussions on the possible diagnosis, revisions and re-revisions of the same before we come up with the most fitting option, go on and on, with brainstorming ideas emerging from everywhere. Knowing that we deal with the most elegant and complicated part of the human anatomy, our brains are on the run always…
Followed by a walk through the green campus with trees smiling at you and you reach the OPD. This would be followed by outpatient discussions and another set of puzzlers!!! A lot of patients with expectant eyes wait patiently to be seen. Human miseries in its varied forms and illnesses move us, may depress us but there is a hope in the eyes of patients and their faith in us that gives the motivation to work ahead and help in the best possible way.
Each one of the patients has their own long long history, a big bunch of files, investigations and MRIs and then we try to put together everything – more often than not, it still remains a mystery to be solved until you present it to consultants. Things start to make sense then and we get a plan to move ahead. A retake of history and another new set of clues then follow inevitably, just showing us that it needs more and more time on every neurology patient to reach that evading diagnosis.
Just when you seem to getting an idea on your inpatients, the emergency rotation day shows up with a large number of cases of stroke, neuroinfections, GBS, CVTs and a lot of patients with uncertain diagnosis referred from peripheries for opinions and diagnoses to the casualty. And CTs showing white or black holes or none, lead us to scratch our brains more… for that diagnosis !!!
A variety of neurological, non-neurological and surgical cases show up, which we try to sort out despite the huge anxious crowd, while discussing with seniors and consultants and calling the radiology residents for opinions and more often for urgent MRIs. These along with a quick article download on your tablet/phablet (carefully chosen and updated for its fastest internet speed and a still faster processor, usu. the best in the market!!! ) about all the odd points in your case and we are ready to show it to consultant.
The evenings start with a tea and a talk with seniors/juniors on how to go about the rest of the day left and make the best of it. The nursing staff welcomes you to ward back with “doctorji… patient was asking for you” and you know the admissions were waiting for you. Start history taking, attend casualty calls in between, arrange EEGs, MRIs, biopsies, and do nerve conductions explaining them that its only a mild shock ( !!! ) and when it accidentally shocks you – jump up from your chair and the patient is smiling at you !!! The day ends with a plan to read articles relevant for that day and when we wake up we realize that it’s a new day, you barely have time for taking a print-out which is rushed through and finds a place in one of the files… And the process repeats again… and in between calls from home/friends and sometimes a message on whatsapp from an old inpatient asking you how are you doing… 🙂