Petty Scheming

I have seen all sorts of people working for us. There was this Professor once, quite junior to me actually, who had an ego about a hundred times mine. I would have liked to say I had no ego, but I am not sure that would be hundred per cent accurate. This Professor, whom we will call TP for convenience, resented me as head of department, though God knows why. TP was way junior, and could not have made it to the head's position even if I had not been there. TP's capabilities left much to be desired. I will give an example. The Resident Doctors went on strike once, when I was on vacation, and so were the people between me and TP position-wise. TP had to head the department and do my administrative work. TP got two more senior faculty to help TP do my job, leaving patient care to others. I heard of it, joined duty immediately, and sent all three of them to do their own work.
As head of the department I had to chair all clinical meetings conducted in the department, though the meetings were conducted by each unit head in rotation. Once there was one meeting that TP was to conduct. I left my office two minutes before the time of the meeting and started towards the seminar hall. Suddenly TP's Lecturer stopped me and started talking about something of minor importance. I answered civilly. After a few minutes this lecturer finished saying whatever he/she had to say, turned and went away. I wondered why he/she was not attending the meeting which was being conducted by his/her own unit. I reached the seminar hall, only to find that TP had already started the meeting. I realized later that TP had planted the Lecturer outside my office to delay me, so that TP could start the meeting in my absence. This Lecturer had worked with me in the past. He/she was a nice person. I could not understand why he/she would do something wrong, knowing it was wrong, only because the current unit head ordered him/her to do so. I never said a word about it to TP, the Lecturer, or anyone else, because I knew such petty behavior achieved nothing for anyone in the long run. In the long run, TP tired of us and left for greener pastures, which turned out to be not green at all. I have not kept a check on how many pastures TP has changed subsequently. That Lecturer left the institute after some time. That time he/she just said "I am sorry" to me and left, without explaining why he/she was sorry. I think both of us knew why he/she was sorry.

Anti-Green Brigade

The backside of my office was green once. There was a huge tree of tamarind. It was taller than our second floor, which is equivalent to the third floor of modern buildings. I don't know if anything untoward was done to the ground nearby that tree during various civil activities. One day the tree just got uprooted and fell down. There was another guava tree just outside my window. It used to compensate a little for the absence of the tamarind tree, and used to bear fruit in reasonable quantity. Small children used to raid it for the fruit. When they repaired our building, they dropped so much debris, cement, and whatever else they use for building, that I was afraid the tree would die. It survived. But it developed a fungal disease. I got the gardeners to try and cure it. The applied radical cure and just cut down the tree. I was almost devastated. But then the tree started growing up again from its cut stem. I started watering it from my window. It looked better for a few days. But then the toxic waste of the building repair job probably dissolved in water and poisoned the tree. It died. I was almost devastated yet again. Then I took from our balcony garden three flowering plants - two with red flowers and one with yellow ones. I planted them behind my office. They survived, grew and started flowering. The builder had left sufficient leakage of water from the repaired building so that the plants did not have to be watered. They were well when I went on vacation almost three weeks ago. I had to go to the hospital today while still on vacation, for administrative work. I looked at my garden when I could find some time. There was no garden. Someone had uprooted and removed all plants from that patch.
"Perhaps the civil engineers got the plants removed to protect the building" someone said.
'But they have left all the debris of the building construction work behind, more than three years after the work was completed" I said. "That is a greater duty of civil engineers than removing tiny plants."
"Perhaps someone stole the plants and sold them" someone said.
"Perhaps" I said. "But these were not very exotic plants that people would buy." Whatever it may be, this time I was totally devastated.
"Now don't plant any more plants there" my wife advised me, watching me grieve for those plants.
I nodded.

Repairing a Sterilizer

My wife has a boiler type of sterilizer in her clinic, that she uses to sterilize metallic instruments before storing them. She gets them autoclaved before they are to be used. She could primarily autoclave them, but she does not use them often, and the effect of autoclaving does not last for more than 24 hours. She does not like to just get them washed and dried after use, because they can still harbor bacteria and viruses.
The sterilizer started leaking water one day. The electrician could not repair it, and advised us to get it sent to the manufacturer.
"I think the rubber washer has gone" she declared. "Can you fix it?"
"I would love to" I said. She knew I loved to fix things like this. So she smiled and handed it over.

The sterilizer had an electric resistance element inside it, which came out of one side through a circular opening. A disc shaped rubber washer was fitted between the element and the inside wall of the sterilizer, to prevent leakage and also for electric insulation. It had stiffened and broken into pieces from repeated heating and cooling. We removed it. But we could not find a suitable washer anywhere. Finally an electrical shop offered us a washer. It was thinner than the original one.
"What if I put two of these?" I asked the shopkeeper. "The combined thickness of the two should be equal to the original one."
"Yes. You should fit two washers" he agreed and sold me two washers. Good salesmanship, I can see it retrospectively. I fitted two washers, one above the other, between the element and inside of the sterilizer. My wife filled it with water and it leaked promptly. I started thinking about what had not worked properly. Finally I had an idea. 'Maybe water leaks between the two washers, and if I use only one washer, it won't leak.' So I removed one washer and refitted the element. My wife tried it, and it did not leak a single drop of water.
"So the thickness of the washer had nothing to do with it" I said. "One learns as one works, what?"
"Yes" she said, happy that I kept learning and solving her problems. :-)

LED for Ear Examination

Usually there is no power cut in Mumbai, and a torch is required but occasionally. I use a torch may be once or twice a year. In this idle period, usually the battery cells have leaked all their charge and the torch does not work when required. When our maid servant brought her young nephew for an emergency ear examination the other day, our torch did not work. My wife tried her mobile phone's torch, but the light was not enough. Then I had an idea.

My cousin had gifted us an LED laptop light source. We never used it, because we did not really need it. I connected the LED light source to the USB port of the desktop, switched on the mains, but did not boot the computer. The current passed through the SMPS to the LED light source, and it gave out intense white light.
"This is very good" my wife said. "It is even better than the examination light in my dispensary."
The maid servant was duly impressed, and I suppose so was the nephew. My wife gave appropriate treatment to the nephew and they went away happy. I was happy too because my original idea had worked, and also because I had opportunity for developing a new 3D model. The one shown above is the one I made.

Director's Special

"That is called Director's Special" the visiting Professor exclaimed when I told him about something that involved two of our past Bosses.
"Huh?" I said. Usually I understand what people say. But this seemed difficult. "What do you mean?"
"Director's Special is a brand of whisky made in India" he said.
"Is it? But what does that have to do with my story?"
"Think carefully" he said. So I thought about the story I had told him. Actually it was two stories. The first involved an erstwhile Boss. It was 2:00 A.M. one day when he called me. I woke up with a start. 'Hello' I said. 'Is the operation done on that child?' the Boss asked me. The words were heavily slurred, but I recognized the voice right away. Child? He had called the wrong person. 'You have called the wrong department head' I said. 'You wanted the head of pediatric surgery, while I am head of obstetrics and gynecology.' 'OK' the Boss slurred and put the phone down.
The other story was about another erstwhile Boss. It was 7:00 P.M. Some newspaper journo called me about something involving the hospital. 'I cannot speak to you unless the Boss allows me to' I informed the journo. 'The Boss asked me to call you' I was told. So I talked to the journo, and then called the Boss. 'Hello' the Boss slurred heavily, 'what is it?' So I explained what it was. 'OK, instruct the concerned persons not to repeat what they did' the Boss managed to say, the voice still very heavy.
"Have you understood the reference to Director's Special?' the visiting Professor asked me with a grin.
"Both Bosses were also called Directors" I said. "Is that what you mean? But what does that have to do with the brand of whisky?" He continued to grin. Then suddenly it dawned on me. "Oh!" I said.
"Yeah!" he said.

Standby for Superspecialists

The poor woman had a bladder mass and a 10 weeks' intrauterine pregnancy. She was passing blood in urine and needed urgent treatment of the bladder mass. I diagnosed the condition and referred her to the concerned superspecialists. She went there at 11:00 A.M. Their resident passed a Foley's catheter into her bladder, kept her without admission and sent her to our emergency room at about midnight for admission in our ward.
:But she has a serious urological problem" my Registrar protested. "You should have admitted and treated her."
"But she is pregnant" said the concerned superspecialty resident. "So admit her in your ward."
My Registrar stood her ground and finally she got admitted in the superspecialty ward. More than a month passed. We were in the obstetric OT that morning. My Registrar came to tell me that the superspecialists were planning to operate on that woman and wanted one of our doctors as a standby."
"What do they expect will happen to a woman's pregnancy at 14 weeks, that our doctor will manage while they operate on the bladder mass?" I asked incredulously. My Registrar did not know what the superspecialists thought. So I called them.
"I appreciate that you are operating on the woman with the bladder mass" I said. "But I don't understand what you expect of us as standby. If you will explain it to me, I will brief my resident and send him/her."
"You know, she might deliver" the superspecialist said.
"No woman delivers a baby at 14 weeks" I said patiently. "If at all she may abort."
"Whatever" the superspecialist said.
"They do not abort with the speed of a flash in the pan" I said. "If she starts bleeding, call us. Even that has no active treatment. Prophylactic administration of progesterone has already been done to avoid an abortion. I don't have people to spare from my OT when there is no need. If there is true need, I will come myself, leaving all my patients."
"We are also busy in our OT when you people call us for bladder injuries and such" he/she complained.
"Yes" I said, "I thank you for that. But note the difference between our calls and your call. You are calling us because the woman is pregnant. We call you only if there is a bladder or ureteral injury. We do not call you for every patient because each of our patient has a bladder and two ureters."
He had no further argument to offer. They operated without having to call us. Now she is in her third trimester, being treated in our antenatal clinic.

Psychoanalysis, Anyone?

This is about one Resident Doctor who worked in my department. What I propose to do is to narrate two events that come to mind, though there have been many more such.

1. There was a case of severe anemia, who was to be given blood transfusion. The blood bank of the institute did not have blood of that group. So they arranged to have blood brought in from another blood bank. The standard procedure for this was (and still is) for the blood bank to give a request note to the other blood bank asking for a bag of blood of that particular group, for the relative of the patient to go and get it and deposit it in our blood bank, for our blood bank to cross match it with the patient's blood, and if it was compatible, to issue it to the patient, and only then for our Resident Doctor to transfuse it to the patient. Unfortunately the relative brought and handed over the blood bag to this Resident Doctor. She/he was about to start the transfusion, when fortunately Senior Resident Doctor said 'Don't transfuse it like that. Send it to our blood bank. When they cross match it with our patient's blood, they will issue it. Then transfuse it to the patient.' Unfortunately the Resident Doctor ignored this instruction and transfused it as it was. Fortunately nothing untoward happened to the patient. If the patient had died of a mismatched transfusion, the Resident Doctor would have lost her/his registration for criminal negligence. When we learned of this much later and asked her/him why she/he did so, she/he said 'I thought it was OK to transfuse it like that.'
2. The other example is a minor one. There was a patient with pelvic infection. The microbiology department required two swabs from the cervix, not one. I had written an eBook for the resident doctors, in which I had detailed all procedures including this one, so that there would be no error in the performance of any procedure. Every Resident Doctor had a free copy, and every one had said she/he had read it. Still I instructed this Resident Doctor 'Send TWO cervical swabs of this patient', and she/he said 'OK'. The patient came back from the examination room with only one swab in a test tube. 'Why did you not collect two swabs when I had instructed you to do so, very clearly, and just five minuted ago?" I asked. 'I thought one was enough' she/he said.

I have often wondered what made this Resident Doctor do exactly opposite of the instructions given. Different opinions obtained from different faculty were as follows.

1. She/he did not understand English.
2. She/he was dumb.
3. She/he was rebellious.
4. She/he did not pay attention to seniors when they were giving instructions.
5. She/he believed she/he was smarter and more knowledgeable that everyone senior (and of course all juniors).
6. She/he was lazy and wanted to do minimum possible work.
7. She/he suffered from a curious psychological condition (which no one named). In this connection I recall what my mother used to say about such people 50 years ago. She used to quote a famous Marathi phrase to describe it - 'कर न करी' which meant one would do exactly opposite of what one was told to do. In order to get the desired result, the trick was to instruct such a person exactly opposite of what was desired. I wish she had known the name of the psychological condition and told me.

In case anyone knows what this condition is, please write to me.

DDoS Attack via Facebook?

I had a suspicion that something was amiss. Getting Google bot, Bing bot, and Facebook bot visits to a website or blog is routine. That is how they index various web pages for search by users. I knew Google and Bing would visit my blog and index it. But when I started getting Facebook visiting my blog from four servers at the same instant, I knew it was abnormal. I thought it was something Facebook was doing as a rival search engine, to surge ahead of Google. I wrote about it on my blog on 18th February 2014.
Now I am not so sure. When I got seven hits from Facebook servers in different locations, all at the same instant, I knew something was amiss. Here is a screenshot of Statcounter showing these hits.

I think this is a 'Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)' attack. It is a method of suddenly causing such a large traffic to a website that it crashes. Someone is using Facebook to do this, though I cannot think of any reason why anyone would to do it to a blog of a Gynecologist and a Professor in a medical college. Those of you who think this is all bullxxxx may read the article at the following address, which I found on Google search.
Article
I only hope it is not DDoS and it is just Facebook in overdrive to function better as a search engine. How it can achieve that by sending seven hits from different servers at the same time is beyond my comprehension. I request anyone of my readers who has the technical knowledge to kindly write to me.

New Tests for Plagiarism

There are professional tools on the net to detect plagiarism. Those are effective, but do not always work well. For example, if there are HTML files from which someone has copied stuff to be passed as one's own the tools will detect the theft. But if one has copied from a PDF file, the tools fail. I have developed some tools out of experience, and they do not fail. They do not necessarily tell about the source, but they do tell if there has been plagiarism. They are as follows.

1. The article has two parts, which may be admixed. One part has perfect English grammar and composition. The spelling is faultless. The statements hold profound wisdom (if the original source had profound wisdom). This is the stolen stuff. The other part has perfectly horrible English grammar and composition. Three or more words are joined at places, because the space bar has not been hit between the words. The spelling is atrocious. Punctuation marks are immediately preceding words rather than after the previous words. There is often no wisdom in the content. This is the original part of the article.
2. There is a special test to detect theft from PDF files. The formatting of a PDF file is such that words do not flow automatically into the next lines when text copied from a PDF file is pasted into a word processor document. So one finds words broken by hyphens in the middle of lines. Look at the example shown in blue. There are professional to- ols on the net to detect plagiarism. Those are effective, but do not alw- ays work well. For example, if ther- e are HTML files from which someone has copied stuff to be passed as one's own the tools will det- ect the theft.
3. The good part of the article does not remain true to the theme of the article. The stuff stolen from another article is often good for the topic of that article, but the topics of the two articles do not match well. As a result, the stolen stuff appears irrelevant.

If the stuff has been stolen from a book in print, the typing can be atrocious, but the content can be good. Luckily, a person who is too lazy to write something on his/her own is also too lazy to type anything, when there is stuff ready to be copied from and pasted. So plagiarism from printed material is less of a worry for an editor.

Advise the Advisor

The government made me chairman of the PCPNDT advisory committee, not because they knew of my abilities to give sound advise, but because I was head of my department and some Babu decided my institute's obstetrics gynecology head should chair the committee. The job of the advisory committee is to advise the appropriate authority, namely the health department of the civic body, on the actions to be taken as per the PCPNDT Act. Then the appropriate authority is expected to take correct action.
There are requirements to be met for registering a center under the PCPNDT Act. After 5 years, the registration has to be renewed, if the applicant is still eligible. No ultrasonography machine is to be without registration. There was a case in which the center had applied for renewal of registration, but there was no sonologist to perform ultasonography.
"We do not recommend renewal of the registration" I said.
"But we have to. Otherwise what happens to the machine?" asked the representative of the Appropriate Authority, whom we shall call AA.
"The center can surrender the machine until they get a sonologist. Then they have to apply for a new registration" I explained. New registration fee is Rs. 25000, while the fee for a renewal is half of that.
"But they have applied in time" argued AA.
"But they are not eligible" I said.
"But ....blah... blah... blah ..." went on AA, who has a knack for continuing an argument, even if it has no merit. I tired of it, as I always do without fail.
"You cannot advise me on how to advise you" I said. "I give advise that I believe is correct. You may take action that you see fit, ignoring our advise if you choose to do so."
"But how can we ignore the advise of the advisory committee?" asked AA angrily.
"But how can you advise the advisory committee how to advise you?" I countered. AA did not get the point, as she/he never does. I wonder if they train people to think and talk like this before recruiting them in the civic body. Finally I had to throw the Act at AA (figuratively, not physically) to make her/him accept our advise, something she/he had to do right in the beginning.
I wonder how civic employees get so that they believe they are the ultimate authority, and they can decide even what the advisors should advise them.

Saved by RAM

The institute has a few labs. Some of these labs do blood coagulation studies using a particular brand of automated coagulometer. The instrument has an inbuilt thermal printer. It also has a display, which shows the readings but not the final test results. One has to give the print command, which results in internal calculations and out comes the result printed on a thermal paper. The company makes the coagulometer in such a way that the life of the thermal printer is less than that of the main machine. Users have to have the thermal printer replaced when it conks off. It might be accidental or deliberate - but works well commercially for the company. There is a way around this problem. One can connect the machine to a PC and transfer the data to the PC. The PC can perform the calculations using software, and then print it on paper using any commercially available printer. When the printer on our machine stopped working, the person in charge of the lab called the company engineer. I provided a spare PC that we had. Then I went away to do some work. I suddenly had a thought and rushed back. By then the engineer was halfway through the installation of the software.
"Excuse me" I said, "is this your company's software?"
"Yes" he said.
"But then why did you not give it to us with the machine?" I asked.
"We give it only on request of the user" he said.
"So now you will give us a CD or DVD with a license to use it."
"I can write it on a CD" he said dubiously. My suspicions got stronger.
"Which software is it?" I asked.
"MatLab" he said nonchalantly.
"That costs a lot of money" I said. "How do you afford to give it free?"
He seemed surprised that I knew MatLab and its price too.
"We have our copy and a CD key. We will give it to you" he said. He seemed to miss the point of software piracy totally.
"Please ask your Boss if he will give a license for it" I said. He called his Boss.
"We cannot give you a license" he announced after the call. "We will install it on your machine for you."
"So we hang for software piracy, huh?" I said. "No, thank you. Please uninstall it and do not ever put it on our system."
He uninstalled it and went away. A few months passed by. One day I was working in my office, when our institute's engineer came to see me.
"I have come to check your coagulometer" he said. "The company engineer is here too. Your PC needs more RAM - it is not taking the software. It is stuck at 86% installation."
That sounded dangerous. I had a feeling of impending doom. I called the person in charge of the lab and the company engineer and asked them "what software are you installing on our PC?"
"MatLab" he said as nonchalantly as the previous engineer.
"That costs Rs. 18000/-" I said. "I had told you not to install its pirated copy on our system" I said to the lab person.
"But all the other labs have got him to put it on their systems" she said.
"OK" I said. "We shall put it if you make an affidavit taking all responsibility of the piracy, indemnifying me totally. Will you do it?"
"No" she said.
"Oh, so I have to hang for what you do, huh? No, thank you. Get the installation removed, and put the PC in my office, where you cannot attempt to install pirated MatLab a third time."
When they all went away, I silently thanked the 128 MB RAM that was running our PC for saving me from this act of piracy. People are unhappy when they have less RAM. I was ecstatic that we had only 128 MB RAM.

Syringe Suction Vacuum Drain

We use a low suction tube drain in the subcutaneous tissue during surgical closure of an anterior abdominal wall incision, when the thickness of the fat layer is 2.5 cm or more. It prevents would breakdown by collection of blood / fluid in the fat plane. Such suction drains are commercially available. They cost a bit of money, but then, what does not cost a bit of money these days? Some of us use a low suction drain built locally using syringes. The originator of this idea is not known. However here is a masterly article in our online, free, open access journal - JPGO. You can read all about it and see the drain at the following web address.
Syringe Suction Vacuum Drain: A Cheap Alternative
I am writing this article for two reasons. The first one is to direct my readers to our journal, where innovative ideas are presented. The other is to show my 3D model of this drain. It looks as shown below.

It requires one syringe, two additional pistons of syringes, a drainage tube, and a clip to occlude the drainage tube. The following picture shows the finished product, in which the three pistons are stuck to one another using adhesive tape.

I am no less proud of my 3D model as the originator of the idea must be of his/her idea. :-)

Time Machine for Department Heads

It was a quite curious letter. I want my readers to study it, especially the parts circled in red, before we discuss it. The parts masked in gray are not to be studied, because the masking is done to protect the identity of the persons involved.

It is actually an order in strong words by someone holding a very high post to various Deans and Heads of various departments in four medical colleges in some city. They are ordered to both make themselves available and attend that meeting. Such strong words to such eminent people imply a very powerful person signing that letter, and the issue must be something as important as national security.
Now we concentrate on the part marked in red. The meeting is scheduled on 01-04-2014. The letter is signed and dispatched by the signatory on 19-04-2014, 18 days after the scheduled date of the meeting. It is received by dispatch section of one Dean on 22-04-2014, signed by the Dean and sent to one department head on 24th April 2014, 23 days after the scheduled date of the meeting. I heard that the date of receipt of the letter by that department head was 28-04-2014, 27 days after that scheduled date.
"It must be a typo" a visiting Professor who happened to see a copy of this letter said. I had been sent a copy by someone who knew of my interest in the curious and unfathomable. "It must have been 01--5-2014."
"That is possible" I said. "1st May is May day - a public holiday. A meeting scheduled on such an auspicious day must be critically important. But when inquiries were made about the meeting, the Director's office knew nothing about it, nor did the health department on whose stationery it was printed. No such meeting took place on 1st May, so that the typo was not in the date 01-04-2014. Anyway look at that precision of writing the date. It is '01-04-2014', not '1-4-2014' like mere mortals write. Such precise people do not make typos. Or they notice the typos made by mere mortal typists, shout at them and get them corrected.. Typos are not possible in other places, as three different individuals have put the date in the month of April 2014, of which one is in the form of a date stamp."
"So what is your explanation?"
"I have no explanation" I said. "I cannot understand working of great minds. But there is a possibility. Perhaps they have been approached to make a bulk purchase of time machines for the civic body, and they want to motivate Deans and department heads to requisition these machines for their use."
"Are you being sarcastic" the Professor asked me.
"Who, me?" I said.

Put the Doctor in His Place

I did not plan to write this one ever. I felt the medical fraternity was sort of violated when I witnessed it. Even today I feel the same way and as strongly. I am writing it down so that perhaps it will help me forget and move on.

This happened a few years ago. The Boss had called me to see him at 9:00 A.M. to discuss some issue concerning my department. When I reached the place, I saw a posh car with the civic logo on it.

"It is the Boss' Boss - the Big Civic Boss' the peon told me. "He wants a check up." So I waited a little distance away, not wanting to interrupt anything that did not concern me. Out walked the Civic Boss, wearing a three piece suit. He was followed by the Boss, wearing a coat and a tie. He was followed by the Head of a superspecialty, wearing a three piece suit. Normally he was seen in a shirt, but this seemed to be a special day.

"Meet us in your department" the Boss told him while the Civic Boss got into the car. "Meet me afterwards" the Boss told me while getting into the Civic Boss' car. He pulled the door shut and the car drove away to the building housing the superspecialist's department. The superspecialist just stood there, stunned. I just stood there, stunned and embarrassed for the superspecialist. He noticed me, turned around without a word and followed the car on foot.

"Could they not take him with them?" someone asked me when I related this story. "The Civic Boss wanted a check up from the superspecialist. What was the point in making him follow them on foot?"

I knew what the point was. The point was that the Civic Boss did not consider this superspecialist to be in the same league as he. He considered him to be much lower down on the social rung. He probably considered himself to be something like a King, who did not associate with such people. He felt that it was the job of such people as the superspecialist to serve him, and that was to be done maintaining the distance between them. I did not say all this, because the person I was talking to probably felt all this too.

Prescription Ready Doctors

I have a nagging fear that a number of doctors that are being trained are not ready to practice. Let us study the following example.
"What treatment will you give to this woman?" I asked a student in term ending examination.
"Iron, calcium, tetanus toxoid" he said slowly.
"Will you say, 'nurse, give this patient iron, calcium, tetanus toxoid?'"
"No Sir."
"How will you instruct her? What will be your prescription?"
"Iron 200 mg."
"Which salt? What route? How many times a day?"
"Um...."
This was repeated candidate after candidate. I am afraid this is partly due to the teachers making similar statements when they teach, rather than speaking precisely. It is also partly due to the students not studying what the teachers do not teach them. The same students qualify and either go into residency or private practice. Then there can be trouble for the patients and the doctors both. I remember the following conversation that took place during a ward round once.
"I was told to give this patient Tramadol for pain."
"How much did you give?" I asked.
"Um.... I don't know. The houseman gave it."
"Did you tell the houseman how much to give?" I asked.
"No, I told her to ask the nurse the dose and give that much."
I was stunned. The doctor is vicariously responsible for a nurse's actions, and here was a doctor who was asking the nurse how much of the drug was to be given. Luckily the nurse had given the correct dosage and all was well. That reminded me of another story. It was a live telecast operative gynecology workshop. On closed circuit, the live operation was seen in an auditorium, questions asked by the audience were heard in the operation theater, and the answers given by the surgeon were heard in the auditorium. A senior doctor was asking the questions into a microphone. A recently retired professor and head of the department was demonstrating some operation. The audience consisted of gynecologists and obstetricians.
"What solution are you infiltrating into the tissues?" he asked the surgeon, for the benefit of the audience.
"Um.....whatever the nurse has given me" the surgeon said.
The entire audience was stunned.

Cruelty to Professor

I was taking a term ending exam of the undergrads. There were 12 students, of which I should have known ten because they were in my unit. I could recognize some of them who used to attend the clinics. Two of the twelve were taking the exam because they had missed their exams due to some reasons. I did not know them. One of these latter sat in front of me, ready to fire off answers (at least he seemed like that in the beginning).
"What is this instrument and where is it used in Obstetrics?" I asked him, pointing to Sims' speculum.
"It is Sims' speculum" he said. Then he got stuck on its obstetric uses. I waited patiently. He put on an expression of deep thought, made some faces indicating the mental effort he was making to recollect the answer. I tired of waiting and pointed to another instrument.
"What is that instrument and where is it used in Obstetrics?" I asked him.
"It is a curved artery forceps." He said. Then he told me one use of that instrument.
"Any other uses?" I asked him.
"...." he repeated the previous routine. I was getting really tired of waiting. But I wanted to give him a fair chance to answer the question.
"Look here. I will go to sleep right here in my chair. When you remember the answer, wake me up." I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. A minute passed. I was beginning to feel good when he said,
"Sir."
I woke up and asked, "What is the answer?"
He mimed the thinking process again.
"You woke me up without finding out the answer? Don't do that again. Wake me up only when you have the answer." I went back to my dozing.
"Sir" he said after a minute. I woke up.
"You have the answer? Good!" I said. "What is it?"
It seemed he did not have the answer. He just kept quiet.
"See this guy?" I complained to my Assistant Professor who was taking exam of another student nearby. "He does not answer my questions. I told him I was going to sleep, and he should wake me up when he thought of the answer. Twice he woke me up, and both times he did not have any answer. Is that fair?"
The Assistant Professor smiled.
I had known Professors who put the students to sleep by their lectures. Some students sleep in my classes too. But I had not known any student who put his Professor to sleep by his silence, and then woke him up, not once, but twice. This surely is a case of cruelty by a student to his Professor?