Dead life...

Warning: Some parts of the following jabbering may appear really gross to some sensitive individuals, especially the non-medicos. Read at your own risk!

Ten days have been managed with a tinge of success. After being in the rather theoretical four and half years of medical under-graduate college, I was suddenly exposed to the full-fledged clinical side, thanks to the RMO strike. People have actually started calling me doctor. I am actually telling them what drugs to take. I am making a difference to their lives. Hopefully, a good one!
And they are making a difference in mine.
When I first saw a cadaver in first year while learning human anatomy, I was blank emotionally. I dissected dead people as easily as I dissected rats in twelfth standard or as easily as I cut vegetables in those days of my glorious daughterhood. I saw the sharpness of the blade separating layers of cells, meeting dead-ends, reverently avoiding cords and tubes. It was simple. Dealing with death is simple.
Now I deal with life. But its not the serene life in the giggle of a child, its life struggling for gasps with choked throats. And when I see it lose the battle, all the pride I hold in the super-advanced knowledge of mankind about our body comes crashing down.
Sometimes, life looks like walking death. She was tall. She was black. Charred. I didn't see her go inside but just when I put my feet on the other side of the door, I saw her walking in small and slow steps towards me. Slow but hurried. The place stank of kerosene. I love its smell. But it stank. Her face was black too, except her eyes which were half shut and her mouth which was strange, I don't remember exactly but I think it was pink. Out-turned and pink. We walked past each other. Two men were supporting her. I looked down at the floor. There were powdery-black foot prints. Ashes of her kurta were flying gently above the floor. 80% burns, I heard someone say. She was shifted to a private hospital immediately. I rushed to the sphygmomanometer to assess another patient complaining of giddiness. Work went on.
Sometimes, a defeated life visits. It doesn't look like death. She was a young slight Muslima once again. Her husband who was crying like a child had brought her along with his brother after she had an episode of hematemesis. (Bloody vomiting). My colleague took her blood-pressure on the stretcher itself while I looked for an artery pulsating with some hint of life. Both of us couldn't find what we were looking for. Her hand was cold and she was still like stone. I proceeded to record her ECG to confirm no cardiac activity. My lecturer said something about uncertainty of life and death and I said yes, only half-listening, for I could imagine the life staring from the half-shut eyes a few minutes ago, and I was stunned even if for just a moment. My lecturer shoved me on the shoulder, half jokingly, "What yes?". I obviously wasn't listening to her and just managed to be polite by saying, "Yes mam, we are so uncertain." Work went on.
But last night those lives re-visited me. Like most somatic pains are worse at night, so are the emotional ones. Shuffling on my bed for over an hour, I kept thinking about them. And I hoped that the burnt woman was burnt deep enough to have her nerve endings destroyed so that she couldn't feel pain. I remembered her mother rushing to her, weeping, seeming more upset because they were an actually happy family and this was the biggest tragedy ever. I remembered I didn't allow a child to go in and see his aunt in this condition and I remembered the Casualty Officer giving me an oh-you-are-so-naive kind of smile at that gesture. I remembered the blood-stained teeth and nostrils of the BD (brought dead) patient. I thought that obviously the rest of her mouth must have been wiped. I couldn't sleep for another hour.
I realized it was stress. Then I realized how stressful it would be for the resident doctors who do this job for three years! Right now it is difficult for me to disconnect my emotions from the things I see every day. My feelings wait till my mind is free from acute demand of alertness. But they don't stop from occurring.
I strongly feel that there is a need to let the resident doctors Have some time during the day, or at least twice in a week, for relaxation and recreation. They must even be evaluated and counseled regularly by psychiatrists. And if they still don't understand, I request Mr. Johnny Joseph, the BMC guy, to just be in the casualty for half a day. The system is acting suicidal by not letting these guys in white coats work in human conditions!

PS : I was very pleased to see my seniors sending calls to the Psychiatrist even for patients showing some sign of depression, irrespective of the fact that he was a thief under custody. And the psychiatry lecturer on call attended these patients religiously, taking enough time to sit and listen and counsel them. Long live the noble professionalism!