My white coat

I sometimes think what it is about the white coat, but whenever I put it on and go to see my patients it somehow brings out their innermost thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires. Patients are suddenly willing to share all of these personal aspects of their lives with me, a complete stranger to them in every sense of the word. If I was slightly less tired now (morning OP had close to 75 patients..!! ), had a bit more of those grey strands of ‘wisdom’ hair , I would probably have dealt with this topic on a more philosophical ground and emphasized on the importance of this cotton attire and how this forms an incredible  aspect of our health care industry. Instead, I'd like to share with you all an experience or let me use the word a ‘phenomenon’ that occurred in my life due to the presence of this white coat of mine. Being a not so enterprising medical student I would rarely be seen in the wards after college hours. Either a cute intern or an even cuter post graduate would have mostly been the reason for me to stray back to the wards during that evening. The Rajawadi Hospital, Ghatkopar  where I did my training from, wears a spooky and eerie look in the evenings, especially just before the Mausi’s (hindi word for aunty by which the ancillary staff of the hospital are fondly addressed by) switch on the ward lights. I entered the female medical ward wearing my almost brown white coat and walked in between the various rows of beds towards the nursing station. As most of the patients were getting ready to take a bath  (hot water was available only for an hour in the evenings) I could see a lot of empty beds. A couple of beds away from me I saw an an old lady getting up from her bed. I immediately sensed she was in some sort of distress. I was not sure of what was wrong with her and I quickened my pace of walking. As I reached her she was gasping for breath. In between her deep inspirations she was repeating ‘Hare Ram Hare Krishna’ continuously. I held on to her with one hand and with the other I started to feel her pulse. Her pulse was galloping and I knew with whatever little knowledge a 3^rd year  medical student had that the lady needed emergency medical intervention. I shouted for the staff. She held my hand which was feeling her galloping pulse and looked at me. I could see she was in severe respiratory distress and she was sweating profusely. She was collapsing …  and that too in my arms . I screamed for the staff to come for my help. We helped her onto the trolley and wheeled her into the ICU. Throughout the journey from the ward to the ICU she didn’t leave my hand and it was in the corridor between the ward and the ICU that I had this really awkward yet beautiful conversation with this lady. Two strangers having met for the first time…  What follows is the english translation of that hindi conversation, as close to verbatim as I can remember:
Old Lady: Thank you, Son for helping me. Hare Ram..(Gasping for air)                      
Me: Oh no problem just relax. You wil be fine.
Old Lady: Son, will you do me a favour.
Me : Uhh.. OK.
Me: [About to launch into a "You're doing great!" pep talk]
Old Lady: I know I am going to die soon Son…anyways, Hare Ram ..I have donated my body to your anatomy department and I wanted to meet one of you medical students while I was still alive.(Gasping for air)
Me: [mouth gaping]

I felt her grip on my hand tightening.
Old Lady: Ya, I wanted to meet one of you while I was still alive and before you all cut me open and poked at my body when I'm a corpse. [Points to her noticeably frail and wrinkled body] My husband signed up for it too. So remember there was a nice old lady once before you all cut me up.

I was like…., what the hell am I supposed to say to that?

The double doors of the ICU flung open, her grip loosened and she was wheeled into the ICU…..

On an awkward scale of 1-10, with 1 being the least awkward (me proposing to a girl)and 10 being the most awkward (a girl proposing to me), I'd have to put this at least at a 6 or 7. It is almost necessary to spend considerable amount of time in first year of medical college forgetting that cadavers were once human beings, leave alone human beings that talked and that I'd ever meet, in order to do what we had to do to them. Basically, as she was speaking, I had images of my cadaver opening his eyes and trying to tell me where and how he had met me when he was alive . I realize this sounds really awful, but I guess this is something you can only understand after spending a year cutting open a dead body which was alive at one point of time.
Since I am no expert at these things anyways, never intend to be also…perhaps you'd like to fill in what you would have said in response to that old lady if you were me, and make a note of this in the comments section.

(The old lady died early next morning and I am still waiting to meet her in some medical college soon……)