Medical Humanities Club

I checked up 'humanities' on Wikipedia, and found out that it shared something very strongly with 'psychiatry' and 'preventive and social medicine' which I studied as a student. One can Wiki it or directly check what it is all about at the following link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities The similarity I found was that the description has a lot of words and sentences that did not leave any concrete understanding in my mind. It must be my inadequacy which prevents me from understanding something written in simple English. But I understand it is quite fashionable these days to talk of humanities. When speaks of such things, others listen respectfully. Suddenly there are experts on this subject, who are otherwise like we all who don't know much about it. Our institute has formed a cell on humanities, and there are members from different fields. I asked one of them to explain it all to me. The explanation was not one hundredth of what Wikipedia has to offer, and it left me as ignorant as I was before. I asked clear questions in simple English, which did not get me any answers, neither in English nor in any other language. They show skits and movies and discuss what they saw. I think we have another elite club, which is beyond the comprehension and reach of mere employees who work there for salary, even if they are giving excellent health care to the poor patients who come to our institute. They are going to include humanities in medical curriculum. I think the students will pass that subject too, like they pass psychiatry and preventive and social medicine, without really understanding what it is all about. After all, there might be a handful amongst them who might grasp the concepts, but the majority are unlikely to be smarter than their teachers who have been there for much longer. In the meantime, if any of my readers will visit the page I have mentioned above, manages to read through all of it, understands it, and is willing to explain it to me in simpler language, I would be highly obliged. Interestingly, there is no entry on humanities in medicine. You could be the one to make that entry and be more famous than you already are. I must tell our experts to write on Wikipedia on this before anyone else does. Just joking :-)

Induction of Labor: a New Method?

This happened a long time ago. We had University Examination for the M.B.B.S. students. At the end of the examination, our antenatal ward was suddenly almost empty. "Where are all our patients" I asked. "We had so many patients near term, some for induction of labor." "Sir, they have delivered" the Registrar told me happily. "You induced labor on all of them?" "No, Sir. They went into spontaneous labor." This was weird. One has to struggle so much to get women to go into labor and continue in labor. Here were a number of women who delivered by going into labor all at once. It needed looking into. I talked to the women. I searched for all possible interventions by anyone treating them. Only one factor was common to them all. They had been kept as subjects to be examined by the students in M.B.B.S. examination. Each one had had her abdomen palpated by at least six students. Such vigorous palpation trying to find fetal parts that they had either not tried to find in the past or had tried but failed to find had resulted in induction of labor in all of them. "It is probably release of prostaglandins at the placental site due to palpation repeatedly by the students, that has resulted in onset of labor in these women. Let us see what happens in the future examinations." It was not a controlled study with permission from any ethics committee, because it was not a scientific study in the true sense of the word. It was just observation of what was happening by University rules. But year after year, women admitted to the antenatal ward continued to deliver in large numbers during the course of M.B.B.S examinations. Finally I started instructing the resident doctors not to send those patients as subjects who were preterm, so that they would not deliver prematurely. Now we have another such examination scheduled next week, and I am apprehensive. Let us see what happens this year.

Audio System: Use or Throw?

My neighbours are an elderly sweet couple, though a little less techno savvy than others. They have children who are engineers, but probably very busy with their work. So sometimes they are in need of technical help, and I always help them whenever they ask me, and sometimes even if the don't but I understand they need help. I was on my way to work that day, when I found that they had put their music system with its two speakers in the corridor leading to the staircase. Their door was open, and they were near the door. So I asked them, "are you throwing it away?" "Yes, it does not work. We want to buy a new one." "Why does it not work? It was OK a few days ago" I said, remembering the songs I could hear in my home while they were played in their home. "Nothing much happens to speakers in general." "The speakers are probably OK. We cannot get Marathi radio station we want." "Shall I look at it this week end? Perhaps it may be OK." "Oh yes! We do not like to trouble you because you are so busy." I rushed to the hospital, trying to make for the few minutes I had lost in this conversation. On Sunday morning I went to their house and had a look at the system. I had taken along my amplifier. I connected their speakers to this amplifier, and played FM radio on it. The speakers worked fine. "The speakers are fine. You do not have to throw them away." "But what can we do with only the speakers?" "Wait. Let me look at your music system" I said. Then I connected the speakers to their music system, and started scanning the FM channels. Different channels could be heard. "It seems to be working" I said. "But we cannot get the Asmita Wahini". Asmita Wahini was the Marathi FM channel they seemed to be longing for. I continued scanning the FM channels. Suddenly I heard songs normally broadcast on the channel they wanted. "This looks like your Asmita Wahini" I said. "That is Asmita Wahini!" they said excitedly. "So your music system is fine. Don't throw it away. Remember this setting where you get this channel" I said and went home. They continued to listen to their rediscovered music system. "What was it?" my wife asked me when I reached home. "It seems to be working." She could hear the music too. "It was working all right. They could not tune in to the channel they wanted." "They were going to throw away a perfectly OK music system because they could not tune in to a particular channel?" she asked incredulously. "Yes" I said. "Lucky you happened to see their discarded system and offered to help." "Yes" I said.

Word Spacing

One of my friends called me yesterday. He is a retired engineer from IIT. He calls me for advice when he has any problems with his computer hardware or software. "How do I increase space between words in my MS Word documents? I want to have a certain number of words in each line." "It may be done, but the result may not be as you desire. Tell me why you want such a thing. If your words are small, there will be more words in a line. If they are big, there will be fewer words. You cannot go by the number of words." "I find it difficult to read my documents on the screen. The space between them seems so little that they appear to be in continuity." "I will call you when I get an answer to your question" I said. Then I booted my computer, launched MS word and opened a word file. There was no such tool in the tools offered by MS Word. So I needed to develop a method on my own. I experimented, and had a solution in a minute. I called him. "I have found a solution to your problem" I said. "That was fast" he said. "Let me open a word file. Then I will do what you tell me to do." "Select all text by clicking on Edit and then on 'Select all' in the drop down menu" I said when he had a word file open. "OK" he said. "Now click on 'Edit' and then on 'Replace' in the drop down menu" I said. "OK" he said. "No click once in the field in front of 'Find what' and press the space bar once. Then click once in the field in front of 'Replace with' and press the space bar twice. Then click on 'Replace all'. You have double space between words." "Yes!" he said happily. "If you want even more space, click thrice instead of twice in the 'Replace with' field." "OK" he said. "Thanks." "Any time" I said.

GTT Innovations

I found a patient in the antenatal ward who had been admitted for an oral glucose tolerance test by our Assistant Professor. Her fasting plasma sugar was 112 mg%. I asked him why she was hospitalized, since we have an excellent laboratory where the personnel are well trained to do this work. He said he thought it would be better this way. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. So I decided to check everything rather than trust that all would be well and move on. "How much glucose have you given to this patient?" I asked the house officer. "Seventy five grams" she said. "The protocol is to give a 100 grams load. Why have you deviated from the protocol?" She looked at others for support, but did not answer my question. I asked the Registrar the same question, who had no answer too. I checked how many blood samples had been drawn. The fasting, 1 hour and 2 hours samples had been drawn. "Now what do we do?" I asked. The Associate Professor, three Assistant Professors and all residents did not have answer. I do not blame them, because I could not think of anything other than abandoning the test and performing it correctly the next day. I think God must have received a distress signal from the patient's guardian angel. I suddenly had an unexplained urge to pick up the patient's glucose pack and see how much glucose was left behind. It was a 100 g pack, and weighed much more than 25 g. I opened it and looked inside. There was more than half glucose left behind. "How much glucose did you take?" I asked the patient. "Up to this mark the doctor made on the box" she said, pointing out the mark for me to see. The mark was at 2 cm distance from the top of the box, which was 6 cm tall. The house officer had no explanation for the placement of the mark there. Then suddenly the solution popped up in my head. "Let us look at the fasting and 2 hour samples' results. It will be like a 50 g glucose load test. Do not collect the 3 hour sample. If it shows abnormality, we will investigate her further." God has saved many a situation that man (or woman) had created in our hospital, for which no human solution was possible. This was one of them.

Auntie Agony

The people in India have a predilection to address others as Brother, Mother, Uncle, Aunt, Grandfather, Grandmother, when they are not related in any way. Perhaps it is for want of better words. Perhaps they feel that if they address others with words indicating a close relationship, their work will be done faster/better. Perhaps they watch others do it and do so without thinking. We get addressed so by vendors when we go to buy things in the market. When they call you as Uncle or Aunt, you may get irritated or downright angry, if you don't think you are old enough to be their Uncle or Aunt, or if you do not like to be reminded of your actual age. I cannot see why a patient should have to call a doctor by any other name. 'Doctor' is a good enough word. But it is difficult to correct them. It is easier to ignore what they call you, treat them and move on to the next patient. We had a patient who had had a three children in the past, and was now pregnant with a baby with multiple congenital anomalies. I sent her in to the examination room where a senior Associate Professor was seeing patients. "Go to that room" I said "where a senior lady doctor will see you." Then I continued to write patients' histories on their case papers. After I finished that, I went to that room and asked if such a patient had been seen by that Associate Professor. "No. I have not examined any such woman. But there was one who said 'I have been sent to see Doctor Auntie.' So I sent her to the next room, saying there were a lot of doctor aunties there." I knew the next room had all very young doctors, probably younger than the patient. Our staff member had got irritated by being called 'Auntie', and had sent the woman away. I went to the next room and asked 'where is the woman who had gone looking for doctor auntie?" "Here I am" said the woman, drawing my attention to her. "Doctor Auntie sent me to this room." I gave appropriate advice to that woman, sent her on her way for further treatment, and went back to the previous room. "I found the patient who had irritated you by calling you auntie" I said. "She said doctor auntie sent her to the other room." Being called 'auntie' so many times in such a short span of time was probably too much for her. She made a face.

Glove Magic

One criterion of diagnosing the institute of training of a doctor is his or her ability to wear a surgical glove. If the person can wear any sized glove on any hand and work satisfactorily, the person has to be from a civic or government hospital, where gloves are perpetually in short supply. I noticed this the other day when my houseofficer wore a size six glove for a left hand on her size six and half right hand and continued to work without any indication that something was amiss. I knew she was from the same institute as me. I had to wear a glove and see the same patient. The only gloves available in that tray were of size six, and all of them were for the left hand. Someone who washed the gloves had not bothered to invert the gloves, but left them the way they were when the previous users had peeled them off their hands. The nurse who had packed the gloves had also not bothered to invert them. So the entire tray had gloves for left hands. When I started to don the glove on my size seven and half right hand, the residents started running around to get me a seven and a half size glove. I stopped them and told them, "anyone can wear the right sized gloves and work properly. A truly great person can wear any glove on any hand and still work well. Perhaps they missed the joke, but I hope they did not miss the message that one should be able to perform well irrespective of the conditions one is forced to work in, while the administrators continue to struggle to make the two ends meet.

Choice of Gadgets

I understand our country is a leader in the use of mobile phones. If that had been for academic, business, industrial, research, and any other such professional activities alone,, by now we would have been at the top position in the whole world. Unfortunately we are just social people who want to talk, keep in touch, and remain in touch (if possible for ever). So we just talk and talk and talk, but the net result is just sound waves. I realized this quite some time ago, but the point was driven home with force when I went to the electronic shops and tried to buy a book reader. They told me none was available in the Indian market. I searched store after store. Then I searched the net. It was true. In a country that uses mobile phones in such a large number, there is no demand for electronic book readers. So Sony, which puts TVs and laptops and cameras in the market does not want to put a book reader in the market. I can understand Amazon not wanting to put in retail stores, because their policy is to sell their Kindle over the net. A Bengaluru based company has put Wink, an Indian book reader in just one shop in Mumbai. They had just 8 pieces. I went to buy one, and was disappointed. The device was small, and could read just text files. No graphics could be seen. My son advised me to buy Amazon Kindle using net banking or credit card. But I have a phobia of financial transactions over the net, and I could not bring myself to do it. In the meantime I kept cursing the attitude of our people which kept the book reader manufacturers away from the Indian market. Finally I procured Kindle 3 through someone who processed it for me. It is great. It shows text files, PDF files, graphics, and even reads out aloud. Now I can read all my electronic books that I would not read because the LED display of a computer screen hurt my eyes after some time. Now I can lie down and hold the reader in front of my eyes and read to my heart's content. I think there is a great scope for a book reader in the Indian market of students, provided the marketing is done with skill.

Brainstorming

We had a brainstorming meet arranged by the Boss. There were heads of routine, emergency, and intensive medical care units, all obstetricians, and heads of two medicine and one obstetric departments from other civic hospitals. The discussion was on how to reduce mortality of pregnant women with hepatitis E. It was agreed that prevention was the best measure, but the opinion was divided on how to prevent it. They discussed boiling water for 20 minutes, putting chlorine tablets in the water, avoiding chine food and such. The the decision was made to invite the head of gastroenterology services. While we waited for that department head, they discussed measures to treat hepatitis E. A lot of suggestions were made and refuted. Amidst all the chaos the gastroenterologist arrived and was asked how to prevent hepatitis E. "The only measure is to drink only safe drinking water" came the answer. "How does one make water safe for drinking ?" was the next question. "Boiling." came the answer. "How long?" was the next question. I was thinking of my outpatient clinic where I have to ask four questions just to get the date of the last menstrual period of a patient. "Usual, what we do at home. Aquaguard." This answer was amazing. "Leave out aquaguard" the Boss said. "Those poor women we are talking about have not even seen an aquaguard." "I will check the WHO guidelines and immediately get back to you" came the answer. I was amazed. A senior consultant wanted to check WHO guidelines for something that every patient would probably be told. Apparently the Boss was amazed too. "No! I don't want fancy references and guidelines. You have 25 years of experience. Just tell me what should be done." "That is what. I will check what WHO recommends for these women and send you the information." The Boss probably gave up. On our way back to our department, we were discussing one suggestion made by one medical consultant to get neurosurgeons to perform craniotomy to reduce intracranial tension in these patients. It was probably earth-shattering brainstorming. I just hoped I did not get any disease that would put me under care of those radical people.

Habits Never Die

मनुष्य प्राणी मोठा विचित्र असतो. जरी एकच परमेश्वर सर्व माणसांना बनवितो, तरी तो सर्वांनाच चांगले बनवीत नाही. चांगल्या माणसांचे महत्व जगाला कळावे म्हणून बहुधा तो वाईट माणसांना बनवीत असावा. काही वाईट माणसांना सज्जनांना त्रास देण्याची वाईट सवय असते. या सवयीमागे दोन गोष्टी असतात - एक म्हणजे मनांत असणारे सैतानाचे वास्तव्य आणि दुसरे म्हणजे वाईट गोष्टी करण्याचा असणारा किडा.

या विषाला उतारा नाही. ही वाईट सवय कधीही जात नाही. त्यांचा पापाचा घडा भरल्यावर परमेश्वराने अशा लोकांना परत बोलावून घेतले की मगच त्यांचा इतरांना होणारा उपद्रव थांबतो.

Trash Fit for a Gutter?

I was on my way home from work. I had to get down for some work on the way. Before I could resume my commute again, I saw something that made me break my normal policy of minding my own business and keeping quiet even when upset. A man crumpled a sheet of paper, threw it on the mesh covering a roadside gutter and started pushing it into the gutter through the mesh using the heel of his footwear. "Hey, stop" I heard myself say. "Don't push the trash into the gutter." He stopped and looked at me. "The gutter gets clogged and the rainwater floods everywhere. The mesh is kept there so that only water goes into the gutter and the trash remains outside. Why are you forcing the trash through the mesh?" He picked up the ball of paper and held it in his hand. He did not say anything. I was surprised he did not start a fight. Many of my countrymen are so much aware of their rights like right to clutter, right to deface good things, and right to fight. "You have a bag. Why don't you take it home and throw it in your dustbin?" I asked. "It was to be thrown away before going home" he mumbled. So he was getting rid of a confidential paper. Since he did not have a paper shredder, he was putting it into the gutter. He did not throw it down again in front of me again. But I was not sure he wouldn't do that when I went away, or the next time he had a piece of paper to get rid of.

A Wife in Every Port, and a Locker in Every Room

I have been having a weird time for some time now. I am aware there is nothing called weird time in English language, but that cannot be helped. What I have been facing is indeed weird. I have staff members who had storage facility at all possible places. They had their offices, with one or two cupboards, a table with a number of drawers, and sometimes filing cabinets. They had a locker or two in each OT. They had cupboards and lockers in wards. When the department had to be vacated for repair and renovation work, the amount of clutter that came out from their storage areas was phenomenal. Now that we are back to the original place, each one has a standard set of storage facilities. The office has a big cupboard, a table with three drawers, a huge wooden chest,a locker in the staff room or nearby ward. In order to overcome the space crunch, we decided to have service lockers in the OT. There would be six lockers, to be used by the unit operating in that OT on that day. Unfortunately the contractor placed lockers in OTs which he should have given to the wards. These were promptly taken over by the junk collectors. He also provided large lockers which cannot be placed in the OT due to lack of space. "We shall return these lockers" I said. "Let has keep them in the OT and use them" a leader of these people said. "Where is the space?" I asked. "We will think about that later. Let us just have them. They look good." I knew he had an eye for good looking girls and women. Now I learned he had an eye for good looking things too, whether he actually needed them or not. "Why? You have plenty of storage space in your office, and have a locker in the staff room" I said. "I need two lockers in each OT. One to keep my bag, and the other to keep my footwear." "Keep your footwear where it should be kept, on a rack. If you have to keep it in a locker, put it in a plastic bag and put it in the same locker." "I keep my important stuff like passport there." I was aghast. When I mentioned this to a friend, a Professor in another department, he laughed and said "ask him to get a locker in State Bank of India to put his valuable stuff like a passport there."

Doctor's Coat

We like to follow standard practice of wearing doctors' coats (what are popularly known as Doctors' Aprons) while working in the hospital. The practice is sound for many reasons. The security guys know who are doctors, so that they can stop others from unauthorized entry into restricted areas. (That they don't stop others is besides the point.) The patients know who are doctors so that they can ask for help when needed. The doctors look like disciplined doctors, which could be reassuring to some patients. I was taking the morning round of all of my wards. I suddenly noticed a youngish guy sitting in the emergency room in street clothes. I stopped in my tracks, went into the room and asked him who he was. "I am an intern" he said. "Why are you not wearing your apron?" I asked him. "Where is it?" "Our Assistant Professor is wearing it" he said. So I turned towards my Assistant Professor and looked at him questioningly. "Sir, my apron is in the duty room. I borrowed his apron so that I could go on the ward round with you." "But now that he does not have an apron, he becomes vulnerable to disciplinary action" I said. "Your action puts him at risk, and that is not fair. Please return his apron." The apron was duly returned, and the Assistant Professor continued the round without an apron. "Our staff room has a wonderful teak wood stand for hanging clothes and aprons" I informed him after the ward round. I wish you use the staff room and the antique clothes stand in it." "Yes sir" he said. I wonder what all purposes the interns serve, besides doing their allotted work.

Dishwashing Footwashing

The guy has set up a fast food and beverage stall on the pavement opposite the hospital. He serves these items to resident doctors, patients' relatives, visitors and passers by. Since the stall is on the pavement, there is no supply of running water. So he keeps water in a container and uses it to clean dishes and glasses used by his customers. I got stuck in traffic next to his stall and had an opportunity to watch his work. A couple of customers had food and fruit juice at his stall. He dipped the dishes and glasses in one bucket containing very turbid (nearing on muddy) water. Then he dipped them into another bucket containing less turbid water. Then he placed them on his table in the stack to be used by future customers. Then he happened to step into mud nearby. He took out a glass of more turbid water from the first bucket and poured it on his foot. Then he took out a glass of water from the bucket containing less turbid water and poured it on the same foot. I think the guy has integrity. He treats his customers hygienic and his feet equally shabbily.

Walking on a Fence

I was standing at the window of the operation theater and looking out while they were giving anesthesia to a patient. The porch and drive were near the window and I could see people approaching the entrance to the department. Suddenly I saw something funny. The servant who was posted in our operation theater until recently, and who had been transferred to a ward by seniority so that he could enjoy a job with less work was walking towards the entrance. Nothing unusual in that, one would think. Well, he was walking on a 1 foot tall and one foot wide cement fence around the garden, one leisurely step at a time, savoring each step. The guy was in no hurry to reach the ward and work. So his each step was timed to take as long as was humanly possible. If he had been a four year old, one could explain the happiness experienced by him. But at the age of 44 or 54, it was a bit difficult to explain, when the time he was spending was paid for by the civic body. Another funny thing about his walk was that he had a wide based waddling gait while he had been working in our operation theater. His walking on a foot wide fence without losing balance was a miracle. Perhaps he was in training, like aspiring ramp walkers.

Masked Unmasked

I was busy supervising an operation being performed by a junior person. Suddenly I noticed that the second assistant had the mask in a position lower than recommended, so that the nose was open. I am quite particular about surgical asepsis and antisepsis. "Hey! Your nose is open!" I said. Suddenly three hands flew to their respective noses. I had seen only one, but three of them were breathing around the operative field through their open noses, and were fully aware of the fact. I think it is a good idea to utter this sentence in the operation theater now and then, and see how many people respond.

The Wail

I was in the middle of a meeting in my office when the wailing began. "I am sorry" I said. "It is a fire alarm." "I hope it is not a serious thing" one visitor said. "No. They have installed fire alarms everywhere. The alarms keep going on periodically, without an actual fire anywhere." "Perhaps some smoker goes to the toilet to smoke, the hospital being a nonsmoking area" suggested the other visitor." "That is possible" I said "But it is not the cause of the alarm. They have not installed smoke detectors in the toilets." The alarm continued relentlessly. I asked the servant to contact the contractor's engineer and get it stopped. The process was initiated, but did not complete until I wound up the meeting. It was a trial, I learned later. "How do we put it off if it a false alarm?" I asked the contractor's engineer. "It is quite simple" he said. "You have to press it here." I went on vacation for sixteen days and joined duty yesterday. At the time of my departure, the alarm went off, and would not stop. The engineer had been called, and was reported on his way. On my way home, i went to each alarm terminal, and pressed where he had taught me to press. Then I realized that all alarms in my department were ringing, and none of the stoppers was able to stop them. I hope they have managed to stop them when I go back to work on Monday.

Capture an Image

"Sir, I would like you to look at a girl's picture." "You are getting married!" I said. "No, Sir. It is just in the preliminary stage yet. See how she is" he said as he held his mobile in front of me. The picture was there, but was a bit distorted. "Why is the image distorted?" I asked. "Sir, I took it from a computer screen." "Could you not save it on your hard disk and then show it on a monitor." "No. They have disabled the save option on right clicking. I tried and tried, but could not save it even after two hours of efforts." I was shocked. Disabling save option does not mean one does not save web images. "My God. You should not be discouraged by such trickes. Come to my office, and show me where that image is on the net. I will teach you how to save it." He logged on to the said web site and showed me the picture he wanted to save but could not. I reduced the window to show the image and little else. Then I pressed Alt+PrintScreen. The I pased it in MS Paint. Saved it with a name of his choice. I had the image saved in fifteen seconds. "Thanks Sir" he said. "Any time."

Calls from Workplace

It was 11:30 P.M. I should have been in bed. But something had come up, and I had got delayed. But I was almost there. The phone rang. It must be from the hospital, I thought. Probably the residents wanted to perform an emergency cesarean section or something. “Hello” I said. “Sir, I am the telephone operator speaking” the fellow said. “OK” I said, “what is it?” “Sir, the Deputy Dean has asked me to inform you that tomorrow you or one of your professors has to go to Byculla office to attend a meeting at 11:30 A.M.” I was going to be at the hospital at the scheduled reporting time, 9:00 A.M. I could have been informed about the meeting then, leaving plenty of time to finish the morning’s work and go for the meeting. What was the point in calling me at almost midnight to inform me about this meeting? “What is the meeting about?” I asked. “You have to collect rejected items or something” he said. “Collect or check?” I asked. Collecting rejected items sounded like a sweeper’s job, not that of a professor. “That must be the case” he said and hung up. I could not go because half the staff members were on vacation and there was no one to run the unit as well as the department. So I deputed someone else, promising to look after that unit’s patients while that person was away. She came back after one hour. “Sir, the meeting did not take place. The concerned person said it would be held only after obtaining permission from additional commissioner. “I am sorry” I said. They need to run things better. I did not tell her about one of the past Directors ringing me up through the operator once, at 2:30 A.M., asking in a slurred speech not found between 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M., if the operation on the baby was over. I had politely said I was a gynecologist, and perhaps another staff member was to be contacted. The apology was also slurred. The attitude was probably ‘full time staff members can probably be contacted at any odd time, without reason, and they better respond.’

The 10 KB virus

“Sir, do you what happened in the society’s meeting?” ”No. What?” I asked. “It was so funny!” I waited. “Dr. XXX was to present something in the society’s meeting. She gave her pen drive to the attendant of the auditorium to load her file and went somewhere. When he connected it to the computer, the antivirus program of the computer found 58 viruses in it.” That was a bit surprising, since this doctor always projected a very tech savvy image. “Then he showed it to one of the members of the society. She took the pen drive to another computer and connected it to it.” That sounded funny. If the first one found 58 viruses, it should have been allowed to clean them. It could not be a demo version, which just detected viruses, and wanted the user to buy it so that it would remove the viruses. Not in the main auditorium. “I don’t know if the new computer did it, or it was the first one, or if it was the work of one of the viruses in the pen drive. When the explorer opened the pen drive, all the files on it were of 10 KB each. He…he…he…he…” This was a new one. The virus writer must have a weird sense of humor. To replace each file, irrespective of its original size, by something of 10 KB? Perhaps he was one who believed in equality for all. “Luckily she has all data on her home computer.” Yes, and also the 58 viruses which were on the pen drive.