Tag Archive | Medical Education
The Family Physician: A Dying Romantic Idea
I have been known to lament the loss of the prestige of the basic medical degree (MBBS) in India. While you may or may not agree with it, the truth remains that nobody who is doing (or has recently done) an MBBS course wants to stay out at that level. Everyone wants to go and […]
Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide: The Dark Knight Falls
From Aaron’s last blog post: Thus Master Wayne is left without solutions. Out of options, it’s no wonder the series ends with his staged suicide. A year younger to me, and yet, he’s achieved ore than I could imagine achieving in my whole life, and at the untimely age of 26 years, he has gone […]
Brown Bag Sessions: Food for Thought
We have been contemplating the concept of having a Brown Bag session once in two weeks in our department for quite a while now, and we set the ball rolling today with an attendance much healthier than I personally would have foretold. In the US, brown bag sessions are a common affair where, usually, over […]
Talking to the Streets for Health: Street Theater as a Public Health Tool
Prior to coming to Delhi, I did not have much exposure to the power of the theater as a mode of dissemination of public health messages. It does sound strange when I put it that way because Kolkata, where I hail from, is a city with a vibrant theater culture. However, I just never got […]
Literature Search Workshop at UCMS: Extra-Curricular Academics at the MEU
The Medical Education Unit at the University College of Medical Sciences, where I am now doing my residency, is a small, but super-active group of people, and they presented today a workshop on Literature Searching and Reference Management. Although the target audience was mainly the Residents, there was some spill-over as well. There were students […]
eThesis: A Continuous Narrative Experience
Our thesis protocols were submitted today and most of us had a bit of running around in circles to do before the closing bells chimed at 1 PM. I was especially peeved at the amount of paper that goes into the making of such a protocol. And given the fact that we had to submit […]
Protocol Writing Workshop 2012 and Falling in Love… with UCMS!
As residents, one of the most important things that we have to do is complete a dissertation, or thesis in course of our training. This is one of the credits we need to have obtained in order to be eligible to sit for the final MD exams. The basic aim of doing a thesis is […]
Despatch from Narela: Another Rural Posting Experience
It has been quite a long hiatus since I last wrote here, and a plethora of changes have affected my life since then. I hope to write about them sometime, and start writing here on a more regular basis, as before. Tonight’s post comes from a sleepy place called Narela, situated at the Delhi-Haryana border, […]
On Being A Gadfly
Although this is the age of Evidence Based Medicine, in large parts of our country, the “E” in EBM does not stand for Evidence, and more often than not, means “Eminence”. Medicine, for a long time, was resistant to the influx of new ideas. While reading the Gawande article on the History of Surgery in […]
Indo-Pak Medical Students Romance the Border: A JPMS Initiative
From the press release of the Journal of Pakistan Medical Students, an endeavor worth the accolades: A Peace Initiative: A Group of Young Researchers And Doctors of India and Pakistan bridges the Divide KARACHI: The idea of publishing a medical research journal had been sparkling in the minds of many young researchers from India […]
National Doctors’ Day & The Perils of Being an Indian (Junior) Doctor
“There is no greater reward in our profession than the knowledge that God has entrusted us with the physical care of His people. The Almighty has reserved for Himself the power to create life, but He has assigned to a few of us the responsibility of keeping in good repair the bodies in which this […]
And the AIPG Fiasco Continues
The 5300-odd rankers in the AIPG were breathing a sigh of relief when the notification for counseling for Post Graduation seats was declared, along with dates and ranks and the rank cards were uploaded on the site. It seemed that the concept of online counseling which seemed innocuous on the surface but was fraught with […]
Another AIPG Controversy
Rumors and hearsay have been a dime a dozen since the bombshell of an AIPG dropped on us and since the results were postponed, there seems to have been an explosion of sorts in the kinds of news just flying around. And like all other med students and PG perspirants, even I have been monitoring […]
Mistakes in Medicine: The Brian Goldman TED Talk
This TED Talk has been on my radar for quite some time now, but thanks to my exams and study schedules, I have not been able to get around to going through it. At nearly 20 minutes (plus a lot more if your connection is as slow as mine) it is a bit longer than […]
Is MBBS Becoming a Vestigial Degree?
“There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs.” —William Osler, The Army Surgeon, Medical News, Philadelphia, 64:318, 1894. The focus of the modern day medical student has shifted from the broad to the specific. […]
The Map of the Cat Conundrum: Richard Feynman and AIIMS November 2011
Well, that sounds like an odd assortment of topics to group under the same heading, does it not? Well, today I had the misfortune of experiencing first hand what Feynman had described ages ago in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman? As my blog readers might know, I had an examination today, and before you ask […]
Trendelenberg vs Trendelenburg: What’s in a name?
I have a slew of exams lined up and am recovering from a (suspected) repetitive stress injury of the right wrist. Combined, they have managed to keep me offline long enough to stay off the blog. But since yesterday my wrist has been feeling a little more supple and hence, this post. Not much of […]
Negative Marking: Proposing An Alternative System
I had written this quite some time ago and I decided to publish this now for obvious reasons. I have an exam this Sunday! The AIPGMEE is a very dicey exam. My personal brush with it has not been very pleasant, so I have obvious conflicts of interest in proposing changes in it and hoping […]
Charles Beevor: The Sign of a “Bloody” Jerk
Forgive the hyperbolic title. Do not take offense and read on before hating on me. Please note the post script for added justification for this inflammatory title, if you so feel. Thanks. Now on with the main show! Not the best known of neurologists, history has not been very kind to this amicable gentleman, who […]
Google+ for Google Apps, Open Lab and Exam Musings
So this is a bit of a mishmash of a post. Google Plus is finally being opened up to the Google Apps users! Phew. That settles the hash of using my old Gmail address solely for the purpose of sticking stuff in the Google Plus panel! Anyways. With over 40 million users in a few […]
OAW 2011: So You Hit A Paywall?
This is in celebration of the Open Access Week, which is celebrated all across the globe between October 24 – 30 every year. This year, since I am no longer in medical school, I will not be able to organize an event on the grounds but will try my best to see if I can […]
Mediquiz: Rhapsody–Preliminary Round
This was the FIRST ever Mediquiz I conducted and fittingly, it was conducted with none other than Parijat Sen, the master quizzer himself. Along with Parijat (who will soon be leaving for an Internal Medicine residency in the US of A) and Shibojit Talukdar (who is doing his Surgery residency at the prestigious Post Graduate […]
MediQuiz: Inquizzitive–Mixed Bag
This is the last and final round from the MediQuiz that me and Tamoghna hosted at KPC Medical College on the occasion of Researching – The Foundation Workshop. This was meant to be like a closing round for the quiz, and most of the questions were culled from an earlier quiz conducted at Medical College […]
House MD 8×02: Transplant
As big a fan of the House MD show I am, let me start off with the disclaimer that I consider this to be one of the worst ever episodes of House MD to come on air. EVER! And that is not just because of the sucky medical mystery, but also because of the very […]
MediQuiz: Inquizzitive–Occam’s Razor
Occam’s Razor is the law of parsimony or, in Latin, Lex Parsimoniae, which dictates that when faced with competing hypotheses, that are equal in all other respects, the better bet is to go with the one that makes the fewest new assumptions. In simple words, the simple hypothesis is the one to go with. In […]
Medical Student Research: The First Year Quandary
The problem with the Indian Medical Curriculum is that it is too intense, as it should be, no complaints there, but it offers no leeway to people who want to test out the waters in the fields like medical student research or public health or other associated streams not directly fed by the MBBS course […]
A Doctor’s Touch: An Oslerphile’s Delight
First watch this TED Talk: This talk touched upon one of the most important aspects of Medicine today. It is indeed a cruel irony that a profession so close to humanity is now so devoid of care for the very subject of its existence. While the issue with the iPatient may not be the main […]
National Conference on Students’ Medical Research
The Community Medicine department of Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram is organizing the 5th National Conference on Students’ Medical Research. The theme for this year is: Translational Medicine. Their website has more details. Here is their brochure: Their website (which is very chic, easy to navigate and user friendly, something we are not accustomed to while browsing […]
MediQuiz: Inquizzitive–“Foreign” Sick
Since a large segment of the participants of the workshop were from the first and second professional MBBS years, we decided to pitch in with a healthy dose of Forensic questions. Here are the questions for the round which we dedicated to the one and only TKB! Once again, credits (or criticism!) for making these […]
MediQuiz: Inquizzitive–To p or not to p!
This round was criticized to be a little too difficult for the average participant in the program, but we figured that since this was a workshop on research methodology, the round dedicated to this topic should be a little tough. Once again, Tamoghna set the questions and I think this was a brilliant round. As […]
