Doctor’s blog

Few years back I read a book about business and how to develop leadership. The writer was Robert Kyosaki, a Japanese American. I am sure many of you must have read his famous book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. The book I am mentioning is not the one I mentioned above, but some other book. I am sorry that I am unable to recollect the name of the book, but I remember certain things from that book. One of the things he wrote there was regarding starting something new and getting success, may it be private practice by doctors and lawyers or it may be a business or an NGO, you should have very clear and a good mission. If your mission is not clear and well defined you will not be successful in the long run. Success if you get also it will be short lived.

So, friends for starting a new thing in life, the mission should be good, well defined and proceed towards that mission, success will be yours. If someone starts a new business only to earn money without a good mission he will not last long in that business. He may earn well for some time, but long term success will elude him. The main aim of a business is of course to earn money, but along with earning money you have to serve people to get long term success.

Some of you might be wondering why I am talking about business, being a doctor. The reason is that, the Medical College I work for is a private college and the aim of the institute is to earn money and provide teaching service to students in the college and patient service in the hospital. But (!!) I see here no clear mission. Here the mission of the institute is not well defined and that is the reason we are facing problem of getting permission for admission of new students. I am being a non player in the college can do only one thing which is to write here in the blog and that is what I am doing.

I will keep all of you people posted regarding new developments.

Last Saturday was a very hectic day for us at the college. In the morning my students had examination from 8 AM and after that we were waiting for the Union Health Ministry team to inspect our institute for the purpose of giving permission for admitting new students for medical college.

By the way, here I would like to tell everybody that my college is yet to get permission for admission of new students from either MCI (medical council of India, the statutory body which is responsibility to monitor medical education in India) or from Union Health Ministry. From morning through evening we were busy for the inspection team. They came and inspected the infrastructure and faculty status of the college. I hope they were quite happy with the condition of the college regarding infrastructure and faculty. We were there till evening, but by the time I left there were still many faculty members for the inspection, in the college.

But I faced a problem during the inspection, not because of my fault, but due to fault of the management. During the last inspection I was transferred to other department due to some shortage of faculty in that department and this time I was in my own department but (!) the management did not check the papers properly and the old papers were still there showing the department where I was transferred during last inspection. The inspecting team caught the fault and I got a few words of moral teaching for no fault of mine.

Anyway at the end every thing went on smoothly and we all hope the Union Health Ministry team reports to the ministry in favor of the college for the new admission, which is for the betterment of every body.

All is well that ends well.

Gout is due to deposition of uric acid crystals in the joints mainly in small joints of hands and feet. Commonest site is the joints of big toe. Due to deposition of uric acid crystals joints become inflamed, swollen and painful. Aim of treatment of gout is to reduce uric acid level in blood to within normal limit. For these along with drugs patients should understand the disease itself.

Uric acid is formed from breakdown of nucleus of a cell (Purine). So a patient of gout should know what type of food contain high purine content and which type contain low purine (consume them liberally).

High-purine food (to be avoided in gout)

1. All types of meat and meat products, including organ meat like liver, sea food, meat extracts and gravies.
2. Peas, lentils, beans, spinach, cauliflower, mushrooms, asparagus, oatmeal.
3. Beer and other alcoholic beverages, yeast and yeast extracts.

Low-purine foods (to be consumed in gout)

1. Milk, milk products, and dairy products and eggs.
2. Cereals and cereal products like cornflakes, flour, whit bread, arrowroot, cakes, tapioca, pasta etc.
3. Sugar, sweets, carbonated drinks, fruit juice, cordials, gelatin.
4. Butter, margarine and any other fats.
5. Fruits and nuts.
6. Tomatoes, lettuce and green vegetables (except those listed above in high-pruine foods).
7. Soup, cream made up without meat or meat products and without vegetables listed in high purine foods.

The purine content of the food is its turn over of nucleoprotein content. Food containing large number of nuclei like liver and fast growing vegetables like asparagus contains large purine content. It should be kept in mind that consumption of large amount of food containing less purine may supply more purine than small amount of food that contain large quantity of purine. So, patients of gout should under stand this practical problem.

Beer consumption has higher risk in gout than consumption of whisky or wine. Liberal amount of fluid should be taken daily so that urine out put is at least 2 liters per day .This can be achieved by consuming at least 2 litters of water per day. Sweat, perspiration requirements will be met by the water content of food. If you are in tropical area you will require more amount of water. More than 2 liters of urine output is required to excrete uric acid and to minimize uric acid precipitation in urinary tract.

In the column “About The Blog” I wrote little bit about myself. Here I will be telling about myself, my job and also about my place of work.

I work as a teacher in a Medical College. I joined in my present job about six months back, before I was working in Army as a medical officer. I will be telling about Army life in my later columns. Here I will give a brief story of my place of work.

The place I work is also a newly setup institute. Construction works are still going on. I work in a Para clinical subject and not directly involved in hospital works. My department have less then required faculty members so we face problem sometime to manage the classes both theory and practical. And our clerical staffs are not efficient so we have to do and guide them in their job. This also takes away some of our time. The reason may be in the fact that they are not paid enough and with that payment it is difficult to get good employees.

At present we have two batches of students. They are from all over the country and the nation is integrated here. It is really nice to have students and faculty members from all over the nation. You get to know about your country well, especially if you are in a country like India with huge population, huge cultural diversity, hundreds of languages, different beliefs, different faith etc.

Today a high level delegation of Central Govt. Health Ministry team has visited our institute to verify the infrastructure and faculty states of the institute. They will go back and report about their findings and we hope they will find all the things acceptable. If they don’t find things acceptable the institute will be in serious trouble financially as well as in all other ways. The main income of the institute being admission of students and charging a hefty fee for that.

To day I am stopping here because I have to prepare for a class also, but I promise I will keep you posted regularly. It’s a promise.

Recent studies have confirmed that a genetic basis contribute to progression of social drinking to chronic alcoholism in about 50% of individuals. Frequently alcoholism is a familial trait. There is a difference in sensitivity of various neuronal systems to alcohol among genetically “predisposed” and “non predisposed” individuals.

There is no single explanation why people drink. Different behaviors and feelings are induced by alcohol in different individuals and also in same individual on different occasion. Alcohol can make people happy as well as sad, talkative as well as silent, friendly as well as hostile. Alcohol is consumed at time of celebration as well as to overcome sorrow or suppress sorrow. All these things can not be explained by pharmacological actions alone.

Attitude, beliefs, social settings, peer groups and learned experience all have a bearing. Availability of alcohol is another major contributing factors of alcoholism. For example largest producers of alcohol are countries like Italy and France and as a consequence alcoholism are also highest in those countries.

Alcohol is supposed to produce good mood, sense of well being, sociability & self confidence. But a all these are learned behaviors. Drinking is supposed to be related to ‘high living’. There is wine snobbery in high social groups.

To some people alcohol provide the excitement of taking risk. Some people boast of their capacity to drink. For some young people drinking is a symbol of rebellion against the oppressive older generation and rejection of established value. Binge drinking is a habit for some people.

Alcohol is sometime excuse for bad behavior, because society’s view about intoxicated person is that he is unaware of his action. So some people take advantage of this view to settle personal score. Because of the society’s view some people knows that there is more freedom of speech after drinking. There are also many more motivation to excess drinking and alcoholism. The pollutants (may be water pollution and other pollutions) in alcohol may add to the effects of alcohol.

Hello everybody, I am starting a personal blog here. I am a doctor, so about half of the contents of this blog I will write about my profession i.e. health and medical related topics of everyday problems and also about latest and breakthrough developments in medical science. Other things I will write about my life, family, ambition and everyday activity in my job and many more.

By the way I live in a tiny state in India, in the North Eastern part. I live in the capital city.

I work in a Medical College as a teacher. There are two medical colleges in my state, both are recently established. One is privately managed and the other is Government managed. I work in the private managed college. In my blog I will discuss a lot of things about my experience in college and with students. I will also write about the things before I joined this institute.

My dearest friends I would like to tell you that I am open to discussion and any positive or negative opinions are welcome for discussion. I am enthusiastically looking forward to meaningful and enlightening discussion with you all.

Thanks and warmest regards—author.