Sexy Back

I'M BACK!



I'm back to the blog after an extended absence....

during which...

i finished the impossible Bowring posting.

woolmer bought a one-way ticket.

india too.

dr. uma started acting up for a signature.

virginia tech mourned.

we got a whopper of a stipend.

the reith lectures concluded.

prostho-posting concluded without any hassles.

a birthday came and went.

the guys went on a holiday.

and an adventure.

dr. uma continues the cold war

iPod Nano arrived into possesion.

original bike papers departed from possesion.

and other stuff...



On the whole its good to be back!

The Kiss Of Life

I recently attended a CDE-workshop on Dental Emergencies and First Aid.


Almost all the interns from college signed up for the course, which was conducted by the Bangalore-based Nightingales Lifesaving Services...it was a 2 day course held over the weekend, and all of us were initially cribbing that we'ed have to give up our precious weekend to attend the workshop.


However, the workshop was so good and the speakers so engergetic that none of us really missed our Sunday-afternoon nap or Saturday-movie... We all sat ramrod straight, listening aptly to the Instructors explain what we should and shouldn't do in a variety of emergency situations. All this in our college's very own, A/C'fied, darkened Audio-Visual Room....in conditions where i myself have dozed off many a time.


The course was really well balanced...a bit of theory since we already had background knowledge, and an emphasis on the practicals. On the 1st day we were lectured about First Aid in varied situations...Drowning, Choking, Bites, Fractures, Falls, Burns..you-name-it.


The 2nd day focused on CarioPulmonaryResuscitation..or CPR, with each of us getting to practice on a male dummy..which funnily enough, was named Annie! We had to keep at it till we could perform CPR to the Instructor's satisfaction, both on an Adult as well Child-dummy, following which we were certified as qualified to perform CPR.


Interestingly, CPR guidelines change from country to country (European Resuscitation Council, American Heart Assoc etc...) and also undergo major technique-revisions almost every year. What that meant was that, we'ed have to get ourselves re-certified after a year.


I've always felt that it was a major lacunae in the Syllabus that neither a dental nor a medical student in India learns CPR, both as an under-graduate...and even at a Post-Graduate level! It's kinda nice to know that i now, if the need should ever arise, will be in a position to, perhaps, save someones life.


It's a nervy kind of feeling to know you can do CPR...once you are certified, you never want to be in a situation where you will have to do CPR. But at the same time, it re-assuring to know that if you are...you'll know what to do. Hopefully...

Technorati Tags: CPR, medical, heath

Bison Attack!

I was the victim of The Bison last Friday.... even though i'd got through her turf without incident, i still got gored. It was pretty ugly... she thought i was questioning her judgement. She pretty much let me have it in front of everyone.

A very humbling experience... the logical half of my brain says it's okay, forget it, at least now you'll be careful in the wilderness. The other side however, would like nothing better than to take aim and shoot a rusty nail in one ear and out the other.



The sad part is, i had to go apologise later. The boss is always the frikking boss.



Why run a risk?... Throw the dog a bone.......Or in this case, the Bison.

Campfire New Year

Happy New Year everyone!!!

This year my SMS greetings to everyone read:

"Happy New Year! Have tonnes of fun and a grand year ahead.

-Dinesh"

We all met up at BMC-UGH (Bangalore Medical College Undergraduate Gents Hostel) and had a good old time. Campfire...on the roof (!!!), under the stars, with speakers hooked up to the plug-points from the rooms below us. It was a chilly night so having the fire was a really nice touch. Daaru was sponsored by us seniors, and the juniors joined us later too... some of the guys were real surprises, we never thought they'd drink, or smoke... when they did both, we were suitably impressed. At midnight, everyone broke into spontaneous hugging (lol)...me too. (I kinda sprained my back in the process...badly.)





At one point in the night, the fire had gone out and there were only glowing embers- Amit, a junior and a good friend, and yours truly, walked across.



The hostelites took to the streets outside hostel, stopping every vehicle and wishing them for the New Year. Imagine being stopped by 100 odd guys at night! Naturally, the drivers were bloody intimidated... you could tell, 'coz once they were through the crowd, they accelerated like crazy! This is a yearly event, and Part-2 of this is the Cops... who come to restore order, and drive us back into the hostel and shut the gates. Easier said than done - every year someone gets thwacked by the cops, and the guys then get quite aggressive... abusing the cops from behind the shutters and stuff. Phun!



We kept talking on the roof, and the guys kept fading away. Juniors first, then seniors, then some of my own batchmates, till we were down to 6 guys...talking philosophical stuff. That continued for a long time, and of the stuff that i do remember, some of what we said was pretty profound..i swear, the ghosts of Plato, Kant and Nietzsche were among us yesterday. We just kept going and going....till finally we just got too hungry, and i was sent to get some emergency grub. (from the bus-terminus)



I reached home at 430 in the morning...ripped the whole way, and i couldn't feel my fingers when i got off the bike. Spent New Year's morning in Church and the rest of the day at home, with the family...but i couldn't really take it beyond 1 in the afternoon and i crashed till 6pm. Plus my back was giving me hell.



I hate screechy, weepy children....that said, tomorrow, i start my Pedo rotation! Crappity crap! At least there'll be 2 other batchmates alongside, doing their roatation in Orthodontics. Also, 2 of the guys are off on outside-postings...lets hope the month turns out okay.



...lets hope the year turns out okay.

...as for New Year resolutions, this time i've made some. (I used to long ago, and not at all in between)

However, only when i actually break my resolutions will i actually reveal what they are...saves me some shame, i think.





God bless us all in 2007....this year is going to be an important year for me, lets hope i can live upto the expectations, my own, most of all.

Technorati Tags: newyear, campfire

Rocking around the Christmas tree.....

X'mas this time was really fantastic! Well, Christmas-eve to be exact.... This time the party was at my place, so being home alone for X'mas turned out to be a super thing! The guys descended on home-sweet-empty-home at around 7pm, and proceeded to go progressively insane till the wee hours of the night.

Though the party was a tad slow initially, we were in high-spirits real soon..in no small part due to the intercession of my favourite holy man- the Old Monk from Mohan Meakin, who did his job flawlessly after 7years of hermitage in a cask. Also deserving accolades for its role in fuelling the party- The Pig; that martyred itself to provide Vindaloo for the sake of 12 famished dentists....


The grumpy neighbours shut up and put up too, which was a pleasant surprise. (Maybe we got them grooving inside their homes...after all we were playing some pretty dinchak music!)


Aqua vitae flowed, shirts came off, we swore by our friendships everytime we crashed into someone, someone threw up, someone took pictures, someone danced, someone shouted, someone got senti, someone watched my mpeg collection, everyone had a sexy time. By the time it we wound up, we were all just a bunch of phenomenally happy guys with glazed eyes and delayed reaction times....good vibes all around! Really, an X'mas (eve) i'll remember.


God bless the baker's at Thoms for their excellent Plum Cake!
God bless the distillers at United Breweries for their outstanding firewater!
God bless my liver for working extra-hard to spare me from a hangover!

Internship!

Alternatively titled: The past 2 months

Finally i'm an House-surgeon! A bonafide, genuine, authentic one. It's been a back breaking journey so far... lets hope there's truth in the saying "The best steel passes thorough the hottest fires".



NOVEMBER:

Internship began and my first rotation was in K.C General Hospital, Malleshwaram. What an awesome posting to begin with- close to home, enter upto 45mins late, leave 30mins early, interesting work, nice people and a totally cool Staff Doctor to oversee our work. We couldn't have had it better. Our seniors, the outgoing batch of Housies were posted with us too, and they kind of 'handed over' things to us. And thank god they were around- they were at the end of a full year of clinical-rotations and always knew exactly what to do when. Their presence was very reassuring and it allowed us to build up our own confidence levels to 'intern-level'. I've now realized that being an Intern is all about having faith in your own abilities...do the same thing old thing, but do it with confidence. Although, its scary as hell when youre testing out your abilities for the first time.



DECEMBER:

I'm currently posted in the Dept. of Operative Dentistry Endodontics, also known as 'Conserv' (U.G speak) or 'Endo' (P.G speak). No seniors now to help us. Since only so few of us came out of the end of the Final Year pipe, there are only 2 of us to a single batch....when a usual Inter-batch has a minimum of 4 Interns. So me and my permanent batch-mate, Gunjan, are doing double the work that an Intern Batch usually would in the same time. We're sweating blood. But we're learning loads. Thankfully, our efforts aren't in vain; people are aware that we are are working sincerely. At the end of a hard day...i swear to you, it feels great to be exhausted!

Last Class Trip. Missed!

I am going to miss my class-trip.

I can’t believe my timing…Neither can my friends

When I told some of my close friends that I wouldn’t be making it coz I was going out-station the same day as the trip, many of them just laughed.

And when I assured them that I wasn’t kidding, they laughed even more. They think I’m joking.
They’re like: “Who will miss the trip- You? Hah-hah, we know you’re coming.”

You see, I’m always counted-in - by default. Any head-count and I get counted-in automatically, and THEN asked later.

So if/when I have to refuse, this is what happens- I get disbelief.

Which makes the "saying-“-sorry-I’m-not-coming-”-experience even more bitter for me. This is what happened today.

I already felt like crap for not being able to make it to the trip, but when I finally told people I wasn’t going, I got incredulity and doubt…It was assumed I was coming anyway. Slit skin, insert salt, rub…

But this class-trip is a bit more significant than the others- It JUST MIGHT be my batch’s last trip together. Sure, the guys will go to Goa once, but it isn’t the same as having the entire class along.

Once the results are out, I can already see people rushing headlong into Internship. The studious ones will start their PG-entrance-exam preparations, many will join practitioners as assistants, a few will arse about…. a few won’t even make it into Internship! But Interns are Interns…(and Repeaters are Repeaters) and those left out of Internship for 6months will get no sympathy- life will just rolllll on.

There’s another reason why I so badly longed…YEARNED…to go on this trip. You see, I don’t really see myself passing all my papers this time... (something I have no problem admitting as such). And once the results are out, most of my batch is going to carry straight on, with a ho-hum, into Internship, while I get left behind till March.

…and “Before-Results” is going to be the only time that I will be seen as an equal amongst classmates. “After-Results”, well…it’s the reason I want to go on this trip with my entire batch, before the results come.

(PS: Arrrgh! Life is going to be unforgiving- It’s frustrating at times to know this and still be helpless…..Shit, this is kind of ‘negative’ blogging that a missed class-trip brings on! Hope my bad mojo doesn’t stick!)

(PS2: There's a song which comes to mind now...a Kenny Rogers number: "You Picked a fine time to leave me Lucille..." hehe)

The 1st Years Chronicles/KU64 Review

A new batch of juniors has unceremoniously been inducted into the Bachelor’s programme at my college even as I write my final exams finishing 4 years at Dental-School.

Watching them troop down from one lecture hall to the other; they walk around the corridors, unsure of themselves, looking this way and that, eagerly absorbing the sights of a busy teaching-college.

Only yesterday, it seems, I too was one of them, just a “plus-two-pass”, eager and excited to begin the next big phase of my life. I can’t help but be envious of them.

It’s almost comical when they cross us in the corridors. While most of them fail to make the distinction between Patient and Senior, a few of them are already vaguely conscious of a hierarchy they are a part of…and they indicate this awareness by developing an uncomfortable stiffness as they cross us. Plus shifty eyes, and quickened pace. Nothing could delight us more.

KU64

It isn't a movie about a mystery airplane. It isn't a crack commando regiment. It isn't a super-secret molecule that can kill millions. It isn't a map-reference to a hidden bunker. It isn't a elite spy's code-name. It isnt a German U-Boat.

It's a Dental Clinic.
Make that, The World's Coolest Dental Clinic.
And its in Germany.

So, Maybe a dentist with some secret fascination with WW-II submarines decided to name his clinic KU-64?
Not really, it's named after its Kurfursendam address in Berlin.


Check out some pics of the place. The whole place is about 'light, space, freedom'...and YELLOW!

Here you combine dental treatment with a luxurious relaxing spa-retreat...

And relax in a 10,180-square-feet spread.......(Must be easy to get lost!!!)

It accommodates 8-fuck-lucky-dentists at one time...

Who probably treat beautiful hotties...all day long.

LUCKY BUMS!

My Luck is a Hoover....It Sucks!

I just gave my Oral Surgery clinical exam…it went okayish.

And then I went and screwed myself.

Post-Exam, a couple of my friends, who had finished our viva’s went to the Canteen to do the post-exam post-mortem of how the exam had been for us and for the batch in general, how the External-examiner had turned out to be, how much the internal-had actually helped us, etc, etc...

We leisurely finished our grub and made our way back to the College, and I decided to clean up my locker, which was looking a bit messed up from the past week of exams.

Suddenly, two of the guys I had to gone to the Canteen with, and who are also my locker-neighbors, came running from the ground floor, with worried expressions on their faces.

“She knows what we’ve been talking about, man!!!”

“What?...Who?”

“She…”

“Ya, I don’t know how, da, but SHE KNOWS…she just shouted at us.”

“Shit!.............Are you sure?????”

“Yes, yes, we just GOT ITT from her!”

“What did she day?!”

“She said you’re not even Interns yet and this is how you behave!!!”

“Shit.”

“She’s calling all of us.”

“Oh Fuck.”

“Oye….Have the marks been sent?”

“I think they’re still deciding…”

“Fuckkk.” (2 voices simultaneously)

“What were we saying da????!!!”

“We’re Fucked man, Fucked.”

“What were we saying DAA????!!!”

“Shit…I was saying ‘mangalore’ and all”

“I hope she didn’t hear me!”

“Go fuck yourself…she heard everything.”

“Shit, I said ‘unfair bitch’ daa!!!”

“Uhhhhhhhh…….Maga!!!!”

“Maga…we’re fucked!”

“Shit...why did we sit there man.”

“Are you sure she’s not normal-angry?”

“Aye, she just SHOUTED at us man!!!...She said ‘come after 6months’”

“FUCK!”

“Yeah- FUCK only!”

“Come lets go meet her.”

“Faaaaaaaak maaaaaaan”

“Tcha!”

“We’re screwed na?”

“Yeah.”

"Shit."

"Fuck."

(EDIT: I re-read this article and realized there's nothing to suggest the setting in which this took place, so here it is:)
Our canteen is right behind the corridor lining the HOD's chambers, and the Oral Surg HOD's chamber opens right into the very corner of the canteen where we were sitting.

We had finished our viva and were sitting there. And they were inside hosting lunch for the external! Luckily our voices didn't carry much beyond the window....noone IN the room heard it, except our prof who was standing near the window itself. And we weren't talking very nice things about her!

We were summoned by her later and she gave us a piece of her mind....and we apologized profusely. Thankfully, we hadn't mentioned names so we palmed it off as if we were talking about another prof...(lol) which pacfied her a bit. And luckily I had only been asking the questions about her... all the dirt came from the others who were answering me.

Still, total tension till the results came!!!

Fudging

My 1st RCT!...and oh yes- I love fudging!

I finished downloading the "James Blunt: Back to Bedlam" album yesterday....frikking awesome.
Theres a neat page which allows has .rar links to individual songs (nifty if you cant down the album in 1 large file)...try them if you like.

Tear & Rain
Billy
Wisemen
So Long Jimmy
Out Of My Mind
High
No Bravery

...My favourites songs from the album (in decending order).

...Theres Cultural Week coming up in GDC, and i plan to participate in a whole lotta events.
I'm gonna try the DDos strategy...swarm the server and you might bring it down...participate in as many events as you can (with a reasonable level of competence, of course)..and you might land a few certificates. I might as well make the most of the last 2 years of life as an undergrad.

I did my VERY FIRST RCT (RootCanalTherapy/Treatment) today...its really easy!!! I was expecting a tough-as-hell procedure.... but my patient actually dozed off! If the guy was actually relaxed enough to doze off, inspite of a handpiece drilling away into his tooth right in front of his eyes, then altough it might sound stoopid, but i'm considering it a high compliment. Whoopee! Tomorrow i determining the working-length of the canal, and will do the bio-mechanical-prep.

In another news, i wrote my 1st Internal Examination of Oral Surgery- an exam invigilated by the PostGraduate-freshers of the MaxFax dept.....just 1 year senior to us and just learning their way around GDC. We walked all over them...

There was a collective sigh of relief when the faculty-member gave us the question-paper and then left, leaving the pappu's in charge...3 of them. Right away i pulled out my notes and started checking out what i didn't know. The best that one of them (the "principled-turd" of the 3, i've decided) could come up was "Put your book away!- Ask around, but at the very least dont cheat from THE BOOK!!!". So i put it away- for some time. Later, i was passed a chit that had the Classification of Cysts on it, when he came up behind me and took it away. Moja-Farjer! In my mind a giant hand opened the 2nd floor window and gently flicked him through it. The other 2 guys were OK, and gave us all "aww-okay-we've-done-it-too-and-we-sympathise-so-cheat-away-besides-we're-new-here-and-we-dont-want-to-be-marked-out-as-bastards-by-the-student-community-just-yet" smiles. We returned "thanks-for-letting-us-cheat-dudes-and-we-know-you-need-us-on-your-sides-so-dont-throw-your-weight-around-understand-and-we'll-be-all-right-chum" smiles right back at them.

I think i'll pass, thanks to them, unless they cross-check my paper with what the guy next to me wrote, hehe!

But I felt bad??!

Things i found funny today:

The CNN IBN Rakhi Savant Interview:
Interviewer: Do you think the songs you do are vulgar?
Rakhi Sawant: NO! Jo log uss nazar sey dekhe hain unhe vulgar lagta hain. Vaise to mere costumes bahut glamorous hain.
...
(ok, video ho we believe you)


And then...

Manu Sharma's (Jessica Lal's now-acquitted killer) 6page hand written FRIKKING CONFESSIONAL goes like this:

"I reached Qutub Colonnade at around 11.30 pm along with Vikas Yadav, Amandeep Gill and Alok Khanna. We were already a ‘peg' down. A Thursday party was on and about 300 people were present. At around 2 am, I went to the restaurant inside and asked for more whisky"
"Malini Ramani, Jessica Lall and five to six people were standing there, they told me the whisky is finished. I felt bad. I took out my pistol and fired one bullet at the ceiling and another at Jessica Lall which hit her above her left eye. There was a great commotion. Somehow I managed to reach Tony Gill's place where Vikas Yadav and Alok Khanna were also present..."

"I felt bad".

"I felt bad"?????
"I felt bad"!!!!!!!

After reading that, i had a good laugh.
Then- i felt bad.
HAHAHAHA!!!!


Today i carved a great amalgam! Ridge/Fossa/Cusp/Groove...all there.

Room 7 Woes

I’m posted in Prosthodontics…Department 7 in Govt. Dental College, Fort, Bangalore.

Alternate mailing address: The Fires Of Hell, Fort, Bangalore. And kindly address all fan mail to Dr. P, the HOD and Slave-driver-of-the-month.

When students meet each other, they’ll usually ask each other where they’ve been posted.

So a typical conversation would go like this:

“Hey, where you posted?”

“Oh, I’m in 2. You?”

“I’m in 5. So how’s it going?”

“Cool. Hey, we saw a really interesting case today…”

“Really, what case?”

(Conversation continues)

But this is what happens to me nowadays:

X: “Hey, where you posted?”

ME: “I’m in 7.”

X: “Oh.”

(Silence)

X: “uhh…Till when.”

ME: “16^th of May.”

X: “Hmm…”

X: “Okay, Best of luck man. I gotta go.”

X” “Bye.”

ME: “Bye.”

The department is that hard.

Well, the work is pretty okay as such. But it’s long, intricate and physically very demanding. Get past that and you can learn to appreciate the subject- as long as the work turns out OK. Coz, make the slightest error and your end up FUBAR’ed instantly.

Vaseline won’t work …you will get rogered, you will learn to take it like a man, and you will weep like a little girl (If & when you are told to start all over). But its all good in the end…I haven’t known another situation where the saying “The finest steel passes through the hottest fires” rings more true. It’s sounds really corny, but at the end of the posting, as a Dentist, you will be better in many ways.

(am no longer posted in 7..i’m just posting this entry late)

PG Exams

A Post-Graduate...or PG-exam is the like the Eco-Challenge. It’s an extreme event...literally!

You have to undergo grueling training for months.

When it starts you have to be in great shape…mentally and physically.

You sometimes have to suffer through the night to reach a Pit stop.

You ­need your team to be with you every step of the way.

There’s a lot of luck involved.

Towards the end it just seems to go on and on.

And when it’s over you wonder how you did it.

Rajiv Gandhi University just got done with its PG examinations. Phew! How do those P.G’s do it??? A practical examination that lasts for 3 days and ends in a Spanish-inquisition-meets-Clinton-impeachment-hearing-style-grand-viva where you defend your Thesis. Oof!

As a worker-ant, I got sent to collect the grub for the examiners-lunch from a nice hotel. The PG-student who appeared for the examination was a nice guy, who helped us Undergrad’s a lot, so I was more than happy to oblige.

He passed with flying colors. Examiners are nice-guys when their bellies are full, you know!

(...Inshallah, I shall take part in the Eco Challenge too one day!)…(or is ‘one day too’ more correct?)