Doctor’s blog

Many of you might have heard of MonaVie or seen products of MonaVie, but not sure exactly what MonaVie is or its products are about. I was in the same situation before I did some research on MonaVie. MonaVie is a company that uses multi level marketing system, which is a direct selling system that sells directly to the consumers without going through the chain of wholesalers and retailer. These multi level marketing systems claims to share the profits that wholesalers and retailers get in normal common system of marketing. MonaVie is such a multi level marketing company which produces and distributes nutritional and health beverages among independent distributors (known as business owners of the company) and customers or consumers. Due to the presence of internet it has become easy to find out (as I found out and is sharing the information with you) and know the details of a company or a product of a company. You can also follow MonaVie on twitter, one of the most popular sites of internet. If you follow the company as well as its products in the Twitter (the popular social media website) you can learn many aspects of the products and the company which were not known to you before. You can access the information anytime from anywhere in the world. By following MonaVie on the Twitter, you can learn many things and tell your presence to the Twitter community, which can act as some sort of advertisement for you, especially if you own a website.

Here again I am writing the bad news. And the bad news is that the institute I work has not been permitted for admitting students for the academic year 2008-09 and it is final from the highest court of the nation. So no one can do anything right now. We can only hope for the best in the coming year. And hope is something that keeps people going and going strongly.

We are in a situation where we have no control of it. The people who have control seem to be least bothered. We are in a catch 22 situation. We are in a position what have been called Sterling’s law which says “bad things happen in the worst possible time”. And we are in that situation now.

As I have mentioned in my earlier writings that for a business or any thing to succeed the mission of the thing or business has to be clear and specified. Due to absence of mission we are in the present situation. It is apparent that the mission is not clear, from the result we are getting.

Every body is worried about the future of the students who are already pursuing their studies at the institute. Students are the worst sufferers. They have no where to go to seek help as the authorities are not helping.

I have said many things but you may not understand what I said. Let me explain. The college (medical college) authorities have tried to get permission for the admission of this year (2008-09) batch, but failed to get permission due to lack of infrastructure and faculty. They tried repeatedly to get the permission with out any success. Instead of trying to improve the deficiencies they were trying to get by somehow convincing the inspecting authority. But all efforts to convince the authority failed and we are now in this situation.

But the bad news is that nobody knows how the institute will run and what will happen to the students if the institute does not get permission in the next year also. This is the million dollar question.   

Few days back the big boss (the main partner of the institute where I work; the other partner is the local govt.) came here to find out the ground situation of the institute. He came here with the mission to solve the problems the college is facing as he is the best and only person who can solve the problems.

Here, I would like to mention that the local govt. is not doing the duty which it is supposed to do in trying to solve the difficulties. Govt. knows (at least everybody believes so) every thing but not taking any positive action in solving the problems. After all a democratically elected govt. has a moral duty to look after its people and their aspirations.

The big boss came and had a meeting with the faculty members first. Many of the faculty members raised many questions from the welfare of the college to the welfare of the faculty and other employees and the big boss tried to answer to them in most convincing ways. But, I think many of the faculty members were not convinced by the answers which they got. After meeting with faculty he met other employees of the institute and they had much more complains than the faculty staffs. There he reassured them but I don’t know how much they were convinced by his reassurance.

The big boss reassured every body that very soon (we hope) the problems will be solved and the Medical Council of India (MCI) will give the green signal for the admission to the new batch this academic year (though it is already late by more than 3 months). If admission for the new batch is granted it will solve the major problems, and every body is hoping and praying for that.

In the mean time during the agitation in the college for the problems many unexpected things also came to limelight. We all hope that the big boss will take concrete action to sort out all the problems the institute is facing right now. Because he is the only person who can solve the problem and he will be the largest beneficiary of that, being the main partner of the institute.

We all are eagerly waiting for the good news of Medical Council of India permission for the new admission to come. We can only wait and watch. So let’s wait and watch.

We have been waiting for quite long time now about the future course of the college. But unfortunately nobody can tell anything about the outcome. Not even the management side is uttering a word about the subject.

Only last week the combined Central govt. health ministry team with MCI (medical council of India) team visited the college once again to ascertain the feasibility of the infrastructure of the college if it can take up another batch of students for the current academic year. The combined team has gone back to national capital reported back to the concerned. But we are still in darkness regarding the fate of the college. Along with the college the fate of the employees as well as the faculty members are hanging in the balance. All of the faculty as well as non faculty employees are still positive about the outcome of the visit except a few exceptions. But the fact is only positive thinking is not enough to get the permission to admit students in a professional college like the medical profession. It has far reaching consequences to the society and to the nation.

The quietness of the management side is deafening in the situation like the one we are facing. The quietness may be some thing like the quietness we see before an impending storm, who knows? God forbid this should not happen. If unfortunately this happen the institute may not survive unless it gets a fresh fund supply from some other source. But I think the management can manage the fresh fund to make it survive.

There is hardly any time left for the permission to admit fresh students. This is the main negative point for the college. And may be a few negative points are sufficient to counter lots of positive points. Let hope no such things happens here and hope for the best outcome.  If some body give up hope than he/she is as good as dead, so lets not die before dying.  

Back to work place after almost a week of holiday. But not much work without the students. Students are still enjoying their vacation because they get longer vacation than the faculty members. So I will not have much work till students return. Today I am having solitary presence myself in the department. Other staffs are yet to join duty (they may join the coming Monday).

I thought I should give you news about my city, that only this week the capital city was connected by rail. The state being hilly and land locked had no rail connection though it is very well connected by air since very long time. Locals were very enthusiastically waiting for the rail connectivity and they were visibly happy the day rail connectivity was established. I only hope the service is up to the mark of acceptability. The Indian Railway is notorious for its punctuality, though after the present railway minister took over the situation has improved dramatically. But still lots need to be done.

Another information I would like to share with all of you, that my college did not get permission (till date) to admit students in the college from MCI (medical council of India) nor from Central health ministry. It is very sad and bad news for all of us who are related to this college including students, faculty members and other supporting staffs. Nobody is clear about the future of the students as well as faculty members. If admission is not permitted for one year what will happen to the students. The institute being self financing will have tough time managing its finances.

But the motto of life should be never ever to give up in any failure, and I hope the management also believes in the above mantra of life. If a door closes than more than one door will open.  

We have been waiting for quite long time now for the permission of admission of new students in the college where I work. But now wait has been too long and hopes of new admissions are fading as time is passing. From management side they are still reassuring us that the job will be done. But nobody can tell for sure when and how the job will be done. The management seems to be playing hide and seek game with everybody.

The last date according to the guidelines has already passed and the management is trying to extend the deadline. But I have my doubt. If new admissions are not there every thing can go wrong. We are just hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

As I wrote before the Central health ministry team visited the last week and supposed to report, but we still don’t know what report they have submitted to the govt.

We are supposed to a pay hike around this time but it seems unlikely, even our pay slips may get delayed (we don’t know for how long if this present situation continues). Lots of things are happening in the college and in the hospital where the college is affiliated, which should not happen in the best interest of all of us.

In a situation like this one can only hope for the best, but can’t do anything until he/she has an alternative source of income which is ideally at least the same as salary. At this time I hope I had an alternative source of income. I am at present working to get an alternative income source.

By the way today I got an invitation from one of my doctor friend who works here in another department on the occasion of her marriage with another doctor, who is doing post graduation at present. I can’t attend her marriage but can wish her a happy and prosperous life ahead.     

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.

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.

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.