Just Do It!

I am aware this is almost a trademark of a famous sports company, But long before the company adopted it as its slogan, some of our doctors had adopted it. I recall the time laparoscopy had just come to our institute. I was a first year resident doctor. I was not allowed to have my own thoughts, and definitely not allowed to express them in case I happened to have any. I was not allowed to touch the laparoscope too. Those in command, usually honorary professors, used the laparoscope to the best of their abilities, without really worrying too much about the patients. Some of them were somewhat adventurous, and would apply their wild ideas to laparoscopy without compunction. The patients would not have known the difference even if they had not been anesthetized, because they came to the famous hospital with blind faith and were often ignorant too. On that fateful day one patient undergoing laparoscopy at the hands of an honorary professor developed a huge distortions of the stomach by gases during ventilation by the anesthetist. It was standard practice to pass a nasogastric tube and decompress a distended stomach, so that it would not be Injured during laparoscopy, But our honorary professor had a novel idea. "Let us put the trocar and cannada into the stomach to remove the gas" he said. The trocar and cannada were used to put the laparoscope into the abdomen, not for sucha purpose. But his position being that of a king or god in the hospital, no one objected, He did it, and the gas did come out through it. He was happy because he had done something new and it had worked. Unfortunately the stomach injury caused perforative peritonitis, and the patient required an exploratory laparotomy for getting it repaired. He was lucky.No one sued him. Still he was unhappy because he could not publish it in a scientific journal as an innovative use of trocar and cannada. He retired in due course, but the trend of putting nonanalytical thoughts into practice has not retired. Sometime someone does get a desire to be the first to do something new, and if the time is unfortunate, something terrible does happen. I must say the trend is on the decline, because times have changed and most of us care for the patients more, and know about the consumer protection act too.