Good Sunday Morning to you.
Please grab a cup of coffee (or two) and do read my one-on-one, conversation with @writerpvs for the @BangaloreMirror on all things personal, science, healthcare myths and medical conspiracies.
Hope you will like it.
https://t.co/kl3S9sM2A1
In between all those hateful comments in my DM, I get gems like these. I appreciate these messages because it helps me realize and keep doing what doctors are really supposed to do and I believe that every doctor must do the same.
Teach.
Doctors are teachers first. Clinicians next and then researchers. Educating public, patients & families about accurate health seeking behaviour is duty half done. Battling & correcting misinformation has to be in the blood of every healthcare worker. Don't be afraid to speak from evidence. You'll be hated. But it will pass.
It's preventive medicine that's important, not damage control.
You don't look at changing the world. You change one person at a time so that next generations are positively impacted.
As a doctor, the first time I actually used a stethoscope after three and half years was on a mid air flight, two days ago.
On my flight from Kochi to Mumbai via @AkasaAir the man sitting next to me became breathless.
I was tired from work and it was a late evening flight and I was trying to take nap.
But the commotion nearby woke me up and I found the air hostess trying to plug in the man's nebulizer for emergency inhalational treatment and I helped her get the machine running. He spoke in broken sentences, but he was not getting better.
He had an oximeter which showed oxygen saturation was 36%.
I asked him if he was asthmatic and he denied. I was confused why he had a nebulization kit. I asked for the stethoscope and found that his left side lung sounds were completely absent. It was water filled (a condition called pleural effusion).
In between breaths, the man tells me that his kidneys are bad. I asked him if he was on dialysis and he was on it three days a week and the next one was planned for the next day. His medications were over last night. I scroll through his unlocked phone images to see his last prescriptions. Most were for high blood pressure.
I checked his blood pressure and found it was 280/160 and he was in accelerated hypertension with drowning lungs. We had 1 hour to land for emergency medical services to attend him. We had to keep him alive.
I have no idea what happened next, but it felt like I was inside an ICU and had to make quick decisions. Mid air, I did a double puncture on his only accessible vein on the right side and further access was lost. The other upper limb had a dialysis fistula made and I could not use it. So I gave him a frusemide injection into his buttock muscles ( a VERY long time since I gave an adult an intramuscular injection) after telling him it was going to pain, but I had no other options and also because it was so hard to find a vein as he was struggling and the flight was a bit turbulent.
At one point, he was leaning on my shoulders and gasping while I comforted him, by lying to him by telling him that we have already arrived. We had another 30 minutes left.
The female and male attendants on Akasa Air who helped me were so calm and composed that I was able to work with a clear mind as they followed instructions. They quickly changed and provided oxygen cylinders without haste that helped me get his saturation to above 90%. I found some blood pressure lowering medications in the flight ER kit and helped the man swallow them in between breaths.
Before he was taken off the plane, he handed me his mobile and asked me to enter my phone number and I did and placed it back on inside his sling pouch.
One hour on that plane felt like a whole day inside an terrifying ICU. By the time we landed, and before scheduled time, he was lethargic, still breathless, but blood pressure controlled. I spoke to the family on phone right after we landed and they took him in an ambulance to the hospital nearby.
The next day, his family messaged me to let me know that he was well. In the evening, after my podcast recording, the patient himself called me after he was shifted out of ICU post emergency dialysis. His potassium level was 9.0 and his kidney functions were haywire. He could have had a fatal cardiac arrest mid air and I shuddered hearing his reports over phone. They removed extra fluid during dialysis and he became better by night.
I would like to thank the flight attendants on @AkasaAir QP-1519 from COK to BOM 8PM on the night of 14th January 2024. I am sorry I did not ask your names, because it was an incredibly difficult time. But we saved this man's life. Would not have been possible without your help. And want you to know this. Thank you.
Letter Of Withdrawal of Me From Religion, to Preist of Parish. I quit From the identity of Religion that the Church injected into me and my brain When I was born..
#religion#preist#Church#Christianity
"Ayurveda is a Religion" and so,
Ayurvedic Blasphemy happens...
The @theliverdoc gets the next death threat for exposing the lack of scientificness in #Ayurveda
Yes, it's real....
What is real...?
"Ayurveda is a Religion", It isn't a medicine.
That's why criticizing ayurveda invites charges of blasphemy and taken too personal.
This has to pass the test of science. Stay Strong @theliverdoc