Tag Archive | PostADay2011
Do you have an online presence? Then stop SOPA/PIPA Now!
in today’s world hardly anyone is bereft of an online presence. And hence, hardly anyone is in the dark about the outrageous Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act. While I am in no way condoning acts of piracy, I am just defending my right to speak out freely. I am not sure that […]
Tech Care of Your Health
Well, it took a massively thought provoking article by Vinod Khosla on TechCrunch to jerk me out of my inertia of lethargy with blogging. In his post “Do we need Doctors or Algorithms” VK embarks on a sci-fiesque prediction of a day when doctors will be replaced by automatons delivering care on the basis of […]
Rapid Revision: Serum Sickness Like Reactions
Background: Serum sickness like reaction is a rare but well-recognized adverse effect with certain drugs, especially antibiotics, amongst which Cefaclor is particularly famous for this. The condition mimics typical serum sickness, which is a type III Hypersensitivity reaction but has not been associated with a similar pathophysiology. In fact the pathogenesis of serum sickness like […]
Rapid Revision: Rheumatoid Pneumoconiosis
More popularly known as Caplan’s Syndrome, after Dr. Anthony Caplan of the Cardiff Pneumoconiosis Panel, who was the first to describe this condition, this is, as the name suggests, a combination of Rheumatoid Arthritis and Pneumoconiosis. Epidemiology: With the fall in coal mining industry and the rise of health standards for industrial workers, this disease […]
Rapid Revision: Chromoblastomycosis
This is the segment where I jot down high yield notes for rapid revision of some key features of a focused topic. I know I have not done these for a while now, but well, with the exams right around the corner, and blogging on the backburner, I decided this might be the format to […]
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. […]
Why the Future of Medicine Should Not be Predicted Based on Recruiting Company Surveys
KevinMD has been the blogging guru of almost all the young medical bloggers out there. I am no exception. I have been reading Kevin Pho’s blog ever since he wrote it on blogspot with a grid-focus theme. Of late, his blog has become a mishmash of ideas, with a cornucopia of bloggers writing on his […]
Happy World AIDS Day
I usually tend to write a series or two on the occasion of this event but several events have coincided this year to cause an immense crisis where blogging has to take a bit of a back seat. The wrist problem that I was having has got worse and typing is a pain and a […]
Earworms: Kolaveri Di and the Pathogenesis of a Musical Malaise
Like the rest of the nation (and some would say, the world), I have been asking myself over and over again why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di. And in addition to that I have been asking myself why the heck does this happen to us in the first place. Now if you are not aware […]
Why this
…kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di? I just cannot get this song out of my head. I do not understand half the lyrics but the latest viral video song on youtube is from India and is one helluva catchy tune. Have a listen. …and be condemned to have “why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di?” play on inside […]
Pepper Spray and the Police State
This macabre image by Louise Macabitas has brought to us an event that has triggered off a massive knee jerk response in what is considered to be one of the most moderate police force in one of the most free nations of the world. The casual stance with which the police officer is spraying […]
Penile Cancer: Another Reason to Stop Banging Animals: (Insert Zoophilia Joke)
First up, I cannot believe the numbers! This is awe-inspiring. I read the abstract three times in order to convince myself that I was not seeing things. More than the results of the study itself what intrigues me no ends is how the researchers got the participants to open up about screwing with Billy. Billy […]
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win."
Have you heard of Sanjit Bunker Roy? NO? Of course. Your nose mjust have been buried in some rotten MCQ book like mine. Go read this then. STAT! One of the prestigious Time 100 in 2010, he is one rebel I would love to emulate. Check out this TED talk of his. [Thanks to Dr. […]
So What If Peter Roebuck WAS Gay?
I logged in to check if I had any comments or mails to moderate or reply to and I was hugely shocked to see this on the stats tab of the blog: Initially I had thought that the spike of visits was because of this post I wrote about my experience of the AIIMS PGMEE […]
R.I.P.: Peter Roebuck
Just as I was about to wind up for the night, I came across this news bit on Twitter: Peter Roebuck is dead. He was supposedly being investigated for committing sexual assault when he jumped t0 his death from the 6th floor of his hotel room in South Africa. He was there to cover the […]
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 […]
Menage-a-Trois: Download, Print, Keep, Share
I have received several requests for a printable version of my previous post. Since I did not realize that it would become so popular (relatively speaking), I did not upload the original PDF document that I printed out for myself. I have been told that the “Print” option on wordpress produces a rather ungainly result […]
Menage-a-Trois
Ah! Got you there, didn’t I? They say when trouble comes, it comes in threes. For example, this month, I have three soul crushing, morale destroying, confidence pulverizing examinations lined up one after the other. (That might explain this post!) Anyways, so I was reading a lot of clinical buzzwords and stuff and I realized […]
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 […]
The Business of Grand Rounds
Oh don’t read too much into the title. Its just an over-thought way of saying that Grand Rounds is up and running over at the Health Business Blog and one of my posts have been included! And some special thanks to the author David Williams for sending special love for my blog name! Thanks David. […]
Trick or Treatment: Do Doctors Encourage Poor Patient Behaviors?
Happy Pumpkin Day folks, and to celebrate this day of weird encounters, I am going to reel off a list of the commonest peeves I have experienced in the past couple of years I have been doing Medicine. There are obvious gaps in the stories, and many are not even unique to me, but I […]
On-Plussed!
OK! So I am officially on Google+ now. Please put me in your circles and stuff. My Google Profile can be viewed here: Pranab Chatterjee. Right now, thanks to the desolate landscape that my Google+ page is, it looks something like this: Come on, encircle me friends, and make my G+ life enriched! On a […]
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: Guerilla Open Access
Thanks to Aaron Swartz and Greg Maxwell, the issue of Guerilla Open Access is no longer discussed in hushed tones in libraries and hallways of big academic centers, but it has come out in the open. Now although I must own up to the fact that I am intensely supportive of both civil disobedience and […]
OAW 2011: “Predatory” Open Access–Making Hay When the Sun Shines
As the whole academic world is lamenting the loss of knowledge to paywalls, there are a bunch of unscrupulous people who are trying to mint money off the OA wave. In what has been termed “Predatory” Open Access by Jeffrey Beal in his fantastic review in The Charleston Advisor, the ploy for these posers has […]
Grand Rounds Time AGAIN!
Another Grand Rounds is up. This time over at Laika’s MedLibLog, and once again, one of my posts has been put up. Thanks for giving me some jostling space with the most wonderful bloggers on healthosphere! Meanwhile, today is Diwali, the celebration of lights (and sounds), and hence ever since I woke up, my Mom […]
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 […]
What Flies in KVPY: A Sample Project
I have been getting a deluge of requests to post some examples of the type of projects that have been selected. While it is a bit of a chore to track down the folks who got through and ask them for their project abstracts (most people are not so open minded about handing out unpublished […]
