Gagging Doctors on Social media.

Gagging Doctors on Social media.

I read somewhere recently that the British government - the British medical association has issued strict rules for doctors on social media- it says something like doctors should not post any opinions or advices on social media as it reflects on the profession adversely. Although I live in India and the Indian government hasn’t had any say on this subject, it’s only a matter of time before they do too- most probably by copying the British government law verbatim- like we did with all of our other laws...Remember the Indian Penal Code, anyone?

Firstly, I welcome the move to curtail "online medical advice" for too many people write way too many medical advice columns using the  easy availability and wide reach of social media and so much so that anyone who gets to read a couple of pubmed articles via google immediately starts doling out medical advice to others. Where I disagree with the British medical association's new rules is on forbidding the use of the word "opinions". Now personally speaking, I am an opinionated man and I dole out my frank and outspoken (even contrary) opinion on all subjects under the sun- from relationship issues to current affairs to politics and I almost never confine my opinions to just my chosen profession. But gagging me only because I am a doctor seems to be a bit unfair to me when all other professions are allowed to vent their ideas and feelings online.

Every day as part of life I meet a lot of people (like the bus conductor of my regular bus, the waiter who serves me regularly at the hotel etc) -some of whom on learning that I am a doctor immediately cage for free medical advice or a second opinion on someone else's previous advice. As any responsible doctor would do- I listen to them, offer my opinion and always, always tell them to consult a good doctor straightaway for a real and valuable consultation. I remind them that I am not their doctor and as such I can only advise them generally based on the limited knowledge I have of them. I don’t consider doling out such free advice as a threat to the medical profession - especially as its only general opinions and nothing specific or in detail. Even when it comes to social media I follow the same set of rules whenever I reply to the half a dozen or so such messages I receive on facebook and twitter daily from friends and strangers. And I make it a point to almost never treat my social media friends as patients in real life because most such online friendships would not stand the test of seeing my real life consultation bill. 

Social media is a medium not supposed to be taken seriously in my view. It is a kind of hobby, a stress-buster to me. So why would I do online again all the same things I do in the real world from morning to night? I use social media to connect socially with people and to offer my views on life and life experiences, not to make money by doling out paid consultations. In fact one of the things I love about facebook or twitter is that I get to meet people with widely different (and unique) life experiences whom I would never get to meet in my real life circles- which revolves mainly around other doctors and hospitals. I am interested in everyone I meet (well except for the trolls)- because each of us has lived a unique life, had unique life experiences and have extraordinary stories to share with the world - social media helps me to hear those stores and apply it to my own life. Now why would the government object to that? Beats me.

And on the other side of the equation, like a software engineer, or like a teacher or an auditor or anyone else doctor’s too should be allowed to talk about their life including work life and its experiences on social media- just like you would tell your relatives and friends about the exciting day you had at work in any other profession. That doesn’t mean that the doctor is giving out secret professional information on patients which can be used against them. When I first started blogging there were too many trolls (mostly frustrated/incompetent doctors who were envious of my capacity to tell a medical story interestingly) who tried to abuse me and railed against me for violating doctor patient information - as if my blog had a million readers and I was sharing nuclear technology secrets on it. I routinely deleted all the spam mails from such envious people and have continued to write what I want to on my blog and letting my sense of professionalism and conscience to be my guide.

If you have been regular readers of this blog you would know that sharing my thoughts on social media involves mainly sharing with you about all the heartaches, emotions, confusions and frustrations of medicine. When I write about the struggle of a doctor to understand and diagnose a rare disease I am not stating that I am superior to other doctors- I just offer you a privileged inner view into the thought processes which go behind making a diagnosis- it’s like watching a match live on TV - everything is real- real patients and their real pain. I don’t think I am being unprofessional or betraying any secrets when I share with you the raw stories of how medicine works especially with all the emotions and feelings involved in each decision. And I am sure like people everywhere you too are interested in other people’s stories or my blog won’t be nearing a hundred thousand page views by now.

So I believe this effort to gag doctors from social media is a dangerous trend and should not succeed- not in Britain and definitely not in India- for I believe that like everyone else a doctor too should be allowed the freedom to express his opinions freely on social media. The story is what matters in the end, not the medium. So is it ok for me to tell your stories on my blog, friends? I await your frank responses. Do tell.

Call Me A Fool, Will You?

Call Me A Fool, Will You?

­­­­When you want to make a fool of yourself what’s the best time to do it? If you are like me, you would say it’s best to do it on All fools day, when you are expected to act the fool by everyone else. I am therefore going to make an absolute fool of myself by doing something I have wanted to do for a long time- make a prediction of how the world would look like fifty years from now- on April 1^st 2063. This is just a wish list and even I don’t think they are all going t come true but what the heck, no harm done in hoping, is there?

1) World Government.

      Now that we have finally stopped eating each other, well maybe not every one of us, there may still be a few holdouts in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Australia who still practice cannibalism, but now that the majority of us have lost the taste for human flesh why don’t we all stop killing each other and start living together peacefully? I mean haven’t we had enough chances to destroy our civilization back to the Stone Age with our war mongering between ourselves? Why can’t we forget our differences in race, religion, language, nation and caste and go on to form a single unified world government? One world and one government is the way to go for our species to survive the next few centuries. Such a government can think for the entire world as a unified whole instead of giving into narrow parochial interests and vote pandering. And have no doubts about it- our species has developed to such a point that our future evolution definitely requires a combined planet wide effort if we are achieve what we are capable of doing which leads me to my next point

2) Off -Planet development.

           The biggest challenge facing humanity right now is the discrepancy between our uncontrolled population growth and our limited resources. The only option left to us to deal with it (because history shows that birth control never works) is to go off-planet. Tell me truly, is there anyone on planet earth who doesn’t hate gravity? I mean gravity is all very well to keep us rooted here to the surface, but the required acceleration needed to overcome gravity has bound us with chains to the surface of our mother planet when we should be out there exploring and settling down on other planets galaxy wide. And as for those who nuts who crib that terra-forming is wrong, hello!!! We terra-formed earth for our species to survive, didn’t we? There is no question of ethics involved in making either mars or venus, fit enough for humans to settle in and thrive. Who else is there? Martians? Venusians?

3) Robo-society.

      Which brings me to my next prediction of a highly robotized society. I mean if we are going to indulge in advanced scientific research and off-world colonization, we cannot afford to waste time and more importantly human brains and resources on mundane everyday matters which could be better done by robots. Highly automated droids (hence I love the name of Google’s OS- Android) should be employed in each and every human endeavor which requires mindless thinking and repetition. Do we seriously need humans to do work which robots can faster and more accurately? We need to get over the terminator movie induced – irrational fear of artificial intelligence and embrace robotics wholeheartedly. Only if we have all manual labor performed exclusively by droids will we finally have a chance to use those fine brains of ours for inventing the things we need to develop our species.

Footnote: Now that you have my list, I am sure that you are all making up your own set of predictions or alternatively -laughing your head off at me. Yeah, I get it too. I know how absurd these sound when we know that our species is renowned for its differences and inability to get along with each other. And even education doesn’t seem to make a damn difference to that way of thinking. Proof? Look at the number of caste affiliated facebook pages (tambrahm confessions anyone?). And these are supposed to be the privileged sections of society - people with a good education, access to the internet and an enhanced world view. If even educated people perpetuate the lowest of common denominators, a specific caste identity, how will we convince the rest of the world that genetically we are all of a single species- just human beings- homo sapiens sapiens? Now that’s the reason I call these dreams of mine a fools dream, an educated fools dreams.

The Ghost In My Google......

(Disclaimer: i have got back to writing short stories after a very, very long time, so i may be a bit rusty, please bear. and oh yeah!, its purely a work of FICTION and names and incidents are purely imaginary)

The Ghost In My Google

It was yet again a Valentine’s day and I had learned from bitter experience to dread “that” day. It involved a lot of pointless time wasting and sucking up to people you did not really like except to make a point to people who didn’t really matter, that “Hey look at me, I am not alone on V-day” and to boot heavy expenses lately. This v-day, this year, I had to attend a dinner organized by my still girlfriend or as she referred to herself “My fiancée” although god only knows when/where/how we became an item. I certainly don’t remember asking her and I am always, always, sober when it comes to women- the consequences are too horrifying not to, as the stories of my numerous friends locked in matrimony show. Well, off then, to the dinner and maybe to give her the heave-ho soon- certainly not this day but maybe tomorrow, this relationship had already been stretched to breaking point and would snap off its own accord if I left it any longer. I would though, have to be, emphatic and unambiguous, leaving no room for any mis-understandings and the inevitable, I will forgive you and you will forgive me proposals later on- that wouldn’t do. My current girlfriend had disproportionate assets, big breasts vs small brains- so she might have trouble understanding that a “no” is a “no” and not merely a feint to get anything else later on to make up, you catch my drift?

I wasn’t always this cynical about valentine’s day, for instance, three summers ago I had the most magical valentines’ day ever. And that’s the story I am going to share with you now. There was this girl in my area and somehow I started noticing her at the bus stop regularly – her dad used to bring her and drop her off at the bus stand and wait until her college bus – with the words Sree Sairam College of Engineering blazed on the sides, turned up and she would get in and wave to him, the bus would leave and then, only then, her dad would get on his bike and leave. So this kinda restricted my window of opportunity to get to know her better. And every single day, I would just stand there looking longingly at her as she waited with her dad and went away on the bus. I would let my own bus go by and wait for another one till she left, never mind that I was late for college, for, you know, which is more important in life, classes or girls?

And then one day, something strange happened – she had left by her bus and my bus having turned up later than usual I had got in and was trying to move forward in the crowded bus having bought my ticket, when the bus stopped at the immediate next stop and I saw her standing there at the bus stop. I was shocked and confused “what’s wrong? Was something wrong with her? Was she sick or something?” Meanwhile the bus had started again and I saw her piercing glare directed straight at me. 

I pushed through the crowd, elbowed a few, stepped on a lot of feet and jumped down from the moving bus, with the curses of the conductor deafening me and I went straight up to the bus stop and stopped a couple of feet away from her and stared straight ahead. So here it comes, I thought, she is gonna come up to me and blast me in front of everyone for always staring at her and for making her uncomfortable before her father. But she didn’t speak a word to me or to anyone else and just stood there staring ahead. My heart did a sudden jump, was she waiting for someone else to come pick her up? Say goodbye to dad at the first bus stop and then hop onto boyfriends bike at the next one. It was an old trick. My eyes started to tear at their corners. Damn! I swallowed the lump in the throat. Can’t be. Just not possible.

And then a 41-D turned up and she hopped onto it. I couldn’t understand, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind then to even attempt to understand. I got onto it also and bought a ticket for theGemini-MOP Vaishnav stop- the furthermost point this bus would take me before I switched buses to go back in the opposite direction to my college. The bus thankfully was not crowded, which was quite unusual for a 41-D, but maybe it was providence playing a hand in my love story, just when I needed a helping hand.

So I stood beside her while she fiddled on her mobile and the bus kept going and going. I had a sneaking suspicion that something was expected of me, but I still couldn’t figure out what. At last, just as the bus crossed the Taj hotel and my stop just minutes away she spoke loudly and clearly- sec.shruthi@gmail.com, did you get that? And she enunciated every single syllable clearly, “have you got that di?” And turning around looked straight at me. My heart did a jump, having finally got the message in the center of my forehead, and a few minutes later having got down I crossed the road vaulting the center median barrier in a single jump, like a high jumper, for I was literally floating on air all that day.

That evening, having consulted my friends, I typed in the e-mail id on Google and not surprisingly found a link to the Orkut profile. The next part was to log onto my Orkut profile, change my profile picture to something nattier, delete a few pictures of me celebrating “hostel day” with my friends and after having sanitized everything, I sent her a friend request. She accepted it immediately and within seconds I was reading through her previous status updates and going through her photo albums as I was pretty sure she would be doing the same almost simultaneously. I then posted a “hi” and got back a hi” then a “wassup” got me a “wassup” oh come on, give me a break thought I, when there was a ping in my outlook express which I had activated to pull mail from my Gmail account. I checked the message and it said “my friends might check this, I don’t want them to know, and so can we move to Google chat?” I mailed her back “sure, wait ten minutes till I download it, install it and learn how to use it..For till now I had no need” I left the rest unsaid. She Mailed back “Ok, keep it ready same time tomorrow, got to go now” and she went away. 

The next day we were both at the bus stop and both avoided looking at each other and acted perfectly normal, to make sure her dad didn’t catch on. The next few nights were memorable, chatting on Google talk- we could only do it a few minutes each night but it was worth it. Then on the 13^th of February, she dropped a bomb-shell on me. “I won’t be there tomorrow at the bus stop at our regular hour. I am going late- directly to the company where we are doing our final year project”.. “what?” I almost punched my monitor and then controlling my temper asked “and where exactly is it”? she messaged back “you know that tall building on mount road?” “LIC?” I asked hopefully….”no, in Teynampet- Temple towers- we are doing a project there on a banking software called temenos”.. I hurriedly saved down that name before it got deleted and we said our good byes. 

The next day, I went to college as usual and maintained a low profile throughout the day trying my hardest not to attract the attention of any one of my profs. And then the minute lunch hour came I hurried onto the boys common room and did a complete costume change to total green- her favorite colour. My friend promised to cover up for me if the the profs noticed that I had failed to turn up after lunch hour. And I hurried out to catch an auto straight to temple towers.

When I got there, I hurried in and from the notice board I found that “Temenos Inc.” occupied the whole of the ninth floor and when I went onto the lift, the lift man asked me pointedly for my id, saying he only took company employees with id cards to the ninth floor and others have to call their friends down to vouch for them. I was nonplussed but decided to shake him off by pretending to go away to call my friend and the minute the lift doors closed I was off like a hare up those stairs- all nine floors without passing to catch my breath. When I went into Temenos Inc., it was kind of deserted- it was their lunch time too and a kind being, in response to my enquires asked around and told me that the students from Sairam engineering college had gone down to the basement cafeteria..Here goes I thought, another nine floors down and off I went. 

This time panting and puffing I went down to the basement to see it nearly deserted, again. I enquired off the solo waiter there and he said “that group’a sir? They just now paid the bill and went up”. Oof! That took the wind off my sails. So it was back to mountain climbing again. This time whooping with deep breaths, sweating like a pig, I got up the stairs taking it one floor at a time and always keeping an eye out for that lift-keeper for if he should catch me, I had no doubt I would be escorted out without meeting Shruthi. And I suddenly noticed something the lift had started from the ninth floor again and had stopped at the eighth and then the seventh and it looked like it was stopping at every floor. Had the liftman caught on to me? I stood there frozen, physically and mentally too tired, waiting for the exact minute the lift would stop at my floor, when I would make a dash up the stairs to the floor above and thankfully avoid being seen.

Then as the lift stopped at the sixth floor with a ping and as the doors started opening and I got ready to run for my life upstairs, something, something, held me back and I stood there like a dumb sheep to the slaughter and Shruthi stepped out, she floated out of the lift straight towards me. We both stood there for the seconds it took for the door to close again with a ping and then I opened my mouth to say something and she stepped forward towards me, very near to me and we……err, something happened, something magical. Later as we were seated at the Red fort restaurant, which unlike the fancy name was a modest budget restaurant situated on the corner of Mount Road/CIT Nagar road and right next to Temple Towers.

We had a long talk and she told me that as soon as she had entered the company the marketing vice president had informed her that a gent was looking for her and had probably gone down to the cafeteria and that blessed lady had made it clear that it wasn’t someone in the fatherly age group, so Shruthi had more than a frank inkling that it would be me, but she still couldn’t imagine that I would do something so impulsive as turning up at her project and in a green shirt to boot.  I shrugged and asked her what was uppermost in my mind “When we …err…did that..You didn’t mind that I was all sweaty, did you?” There, I had asked what was troubling me. She smiled the smile of an angel- “What you did was the sweetest, most romantic thing of my entire life and I don’t mind your sweat” and to prove it she wiped it off again off my forearm with her palm. That was the most incredibly erotic moment of my life and I shivered with repressed feelings.

And although we never actually expressed our love for each other, we did fall in love, became a couple and went about everywhere and had a happy time until she finished college got selected in a campus interview by a company called “Oracle” and went to work. Later differences cropped up, we had a bitter break up and drifted off losing contact with each other. And then three years after we broke up, I was again on a valentine’s day reminded off that mad dash I had made up those stairs of temple towers to meet my love. Having finished dinner with my current girlfriend and strategically reminding her that we had by now reached her expiry date and she could no way satisfy me as she was a like a candle to a flood-light when compared to the love of my life, I put into her head it was time to find herself a newer and better boyfriend.

When I came home that night, before going to bed, I steeled myself to do something I would rather not. But the spirit of the day got to me and I sat down and sent her an E-card from 123greeting.com for Valentines Day to sec.shruthi@gmail.com (something I will never in my life forget) with the message “Always and forever yours”. The next day when I checked my Gmail it had a copy of my card with the message “you will be notified when the recipient opens your card”. I kept logging on every day after that and five days later, was happy to see that “Your E-card has been opened and message has been read” The next two days I was on tenterhooks, expecting a call or a message or a chat window or even a mail from her but nothing. So she still hated me did she? I knew it was a bad idea to go crawling back to an ex….

And then today I suddenly happened to chance upon an old and mutual acquaintance on Facebook, and on Facebook chat after a few preliminaries, I asked her “So what’s up with Shruthi nowadays? You guys still in touch?” she replied back after a few minutes “You don’t know? You really don’t know?”

I was on tenterhooks “What? Whaaaat? Tell me..I don’t know anything, I lost touch.” She messaged back “Shruthi died in an accident a couple of years back on an overseas assignment in Germany. We even had a memorial page for her on facebook for people to pay their last respects. You really didn’t know?”  I didn’t say anything but logged off silently and sat back, back away from my computer. If I remembered correctly Google deactivated an email account six months after not being used. If so who had opened that e-card two days ago? And whose call was I waiting for? ……I shuddered with fear and cried “mummy”.