My Phobia of Clinics

Looking at my tight grip over ‘To kill a mockingbird’, my mother had exclaimed ‘Does this mean you are done reading your textbook of Preventive and social medicine’. For a kid of an Indian parent, it’s a warning that if I fail to clear PSM in my university, Harper Lee won’t be exempted for a long time.

With that threat in mind, I had finally decided to date PSM. And when I did, it was dust covered. If you are a student, you understand how few subjects suck the enthusiasm out of you. For me PSM was that until I fell in love with it when that year ended.

One fine day, flipping through it’s pages, my eyes narrowed to a printed quote of William Osler - ‘He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea. But he who studies medicine without patients does not go to the sea at all’.

For someone who is studying to be a physician, phobia of clinics is ironical. I’m pretty sure that in my two and a half month of clinical rotation in medicine and surgery, I had hardly found myself doing clinical examination on a patient except for that one case in surgery. And to say that I got an internal exam to take in week’s time would be the cherry on top. Funny, right? I know.

The realisation of my minimum knowledge pertaining to this aspect found me during my one such class with our resident in surgery. It felt like a kindergarten all over again with me trying to grasp the flow of information.

Picture a reaction of a claustrophobic. That’s me when placed with any given patient. It wasn’t that i didn’t comprehend. Gathering details about their reason of visit is my place of vulnerability. So now that I know where I lack, I ask frantically anyone I can catch hold of.

Mumma always said that if you want to get hold of anything, be true with yourself. I’m partly there. At least the honest part. Perhaps by the year’s end at the time of my university, I will do a better job. I hope everything fans out the way i want. I’m on it.

Author Notes: From a heart of a med student -
If you want to be good at what you are learning, keep the 3Ds locked in your head.
1. Determination
2. Dedication
3. Devotion
And stay as far away as possible from hesitation. Hesitation to ask. Worst come to worst, they will say NO. But you can still make it because it lies upon you. How much you want it and how far you are willing to go.
So Jump in with everything you got.

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