H1N1 Induced Discipline

Everyone is afraid of H1N1. It seems the political chief has already take at least three courses of H1N1 medicine that is not available at chemist shops. The last epidemic had seen very important persons demanding that medicine, and our hospital had reserved a stock exclusively for them. This epidemic saw no such stock, or if it exists, they are not telling us, possibly so that we do not ask for any.
Our team delivered a pregnant woman with H1N1 infection during one of our emergencies. (This one was different from the one that they had reported in the newspapers. That one was a known patient with H1N1 infection.) They had not known she had that infection until after the delivery. The next day I found a surprise waiting for me in the outpatient clinic. Everyone was wearing a surgical mask. I had always asked them to wear masks to protect themselves from infections when they examined a lot of patients in the outpatient clinic. They had never taken me seriously, and no one had worn a surgical mask before. Another surprise was an extension of this surprise. Every person's nose was properly covered with the mask. Otherwise the mask tends to slip down the nose in operation theaters - probably to make breathing easier.
"What is the matter?" I asked. "Why is everyone wearing a mask?"
"Sir, that woman we delivered yesterday had H1N1 infection. We had not known about it. So no one had worn a mask while conducting her delivery."
"But how does wearing a mask now protect you retrospectively?" I asked.
"All of us were not involved in conducting that delivery. Our senior resident was involved in her delivery. Now she has developed sore throat. We are wearing masks to protect ourselves from her infection."
Fear of H1N1 had succeeded where my wisdom and counseling had failed. When I entered the outpatient clinic a week later, everyone was without any mask. The senior resident had been shown not to have got H1N1 infection. Now there was no known threat. So no one was wearing any mask.
I wonder if they will ever realize that they can acquire that infection even from people who suffer from it, but don't know that they have it.

They Gave Happiness Too

Once upon a time, there was a  king who was very good and kind. He started a hospital for the poor people to give them state of the art healthcare. The hospital got so famous that patients flocked there not only from his own kingdom, but even from far off places, where the kings were not so industrious. The king appointed all sorts of specialists and super specialists, and provided them with the most advanced equipment that his gold coins could buy. There was no reason for the patients not to receive the best possible care there.
There was one department where they could diagnose ailments within the body by passing sound waves inside and catching the reflected sound waves to analyze them and get an internal picture on a monitor. The machine was called a sound machine.  The department had staff members, but they trusted the postgraduate students so much that they left most of the work to them. Difficult cases were handled by the staff members. A special feature of this department was that they not only provided diagnosis, but immense happiness to the patients and their treating doctors too. The following examples will make this clear.

1. There was a patient who had presented with acute pain in abdomen. The sound machine department diagnosed a ruptured aneurysm of the external iliac artery. The doctors panicked and started making arrangement to get blood bags by dozens. They started hunting for a vacant bed in any intensive care unit. The patient would be luky to make it, they thought. One maternity resident had a bright idea. She did a pregnancy test on urine of the patient, which turned out to be positive. So they operated on the patient in a low end maternity section OT, removed an ectopic pregnancy, found no aneurysm - intact or ruptured - and closed the patient's abdomen. The patient got well and went home happy. All doctors were so happy that it was not a ruptured aneurysm of the external iliac artery, that they threw a party  that required their cumulative salary for one whole month to pay for it.
2. There was a pregnant woman. The sound machine diagnosis was fetal Arnold Chiari malformation, a very serious condition affecting the brain which would make the child a permanent vegetative person. The doctors were very sad, and the parents and family of the unborn child were crying continuously. The baby delivered normally, did everything a normal baby was expected to do, and tests done after delivery showed the brain was completely normal. The relatives rushed to the temple of their family God to thank Him for His kindness. The doctors were ecstatic, but did not throw a party because they had just blown their previous month's salary on the previous party.
3. There was another pregnant woman whose baby was shown to have a serious condition called pyelectasis. You must have guessed correctly. The sequence of events was exactly similar to the previous case, including the rush to the temple for thanking the God and doctors not affording to throw a party though they wanted to do so very much.

When the king heard of all these happenings, he praised the sound machine doctors and felicitated their head with a big award. The winner of the award was asked by a journo why they did what they did (what fancy people call philosophy). He held up the award for all to see, and said "our approach makes them understand the true value of what they have. They would not be so happy if we told them all was well, and all turned out to be well. If they fear the worst and all turns out to be well, they cherish it forever. We give them happiness which no other sound machine doctors do." This philosophy of management was (and still is) destined to be famous, and be taught in management schools world over.Future generations will be able to say proudly, "we gave the world not only 'zero', but a 'sound-based philosophy' of management too".