A Renowned Bariatric Surgeon in India
A Renowned Bariatric Surgeon in India
©Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker Samarth (name changed) had called my team at least a dozen times over two days, seeking an urgent appointment for a consultation for weight loss. He wanted to lose weight in a very short span of time. As is common understanding, …
©Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker I recently treated an 80 years old diabetic lady for a gangrenous gall bladder. By the time she presented to us, she was in severe sepsis. It was a difficult surgery. After the surgery, I met her son and grandson and …
Dedicated to all the #mothers
©️Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker
In a city like Mumbai, most people live in nuclear families, and many a times, children have no option but to tag along with their parents even during medical consultations. Some people feel a tad awkward about getting children with them and leave them with caretakers. However, if responsible caretakers are not available, I wouldn’t refrain from saying that children can also be a barrier to seeking timely healthcare, especially when it comes to women’s health.
A few days back, we treated a lady for a breast abscess, and she had to come in for frequent dressings. Every day, she would bring her three years old daughter along with her. The daughter would just not leave the mother and cling to her all the time. She would refuse to sit outside in the waiting area and insisted on being inside the dressing room with her mother. On being denied, she would start crying inconsolably, and absolutely nothing would comfort her. Being a mother myself, I presumed that as the child was so small, she may have some degree of separation anxiety and wanted to be with the mother all the time. Hence, much to the chagrin of the staff at the hospital, I requested them to allow her to be with her mother during the dressing. This went on for almost 10 days….. It was the same story every day. Mother and daughter would come together, and while I did the dressing, the little girl would sit quietly on a chair inside the dressing room. On the last day, I asked the mother if the little girl was so clingy at home too. She just smiled and said that though she lived in a joint family, no one accompanied her for the hospital visits. The husband had to be at work, and the others were busy with their own lives.
Her three years old daughter came with her every day because no one else came. She didn’t want her mother to come alone to the hospital. That was her way of supporting her mother. By being on her side…. All through…..
It set me thinking about how mistaken I was in my thought process. This little human was not a barrier for her mother’s treatment. She was, in fact, the enabler. Any surgery, however small, is a big deal for a patient. One needs physical, mental, and emotional support, and all these go a long way in the healing process. At the tender age of three, she understood this well and, in her own sweet way, supported her mother by being there for her.
May is the month of the “mother”. I am a mother myself, and honestly, many times, it can get a little overwhelming to manage a kid, family, home, and work together. As a mother, I think of myself as the doer who is not allowed to be vulnerable. I believe that it is my job to take care of the needs of my child, my family, and my patients. I feel that all of them look up to me, and meeting these expectations is an unquestionable and integral part of life.
However, this episode set me thinking about all the times when my child tries to support me through difficult times in his own innocent ways. If I complain of a headache, he brings slices of cucumber and puts them on my eyes. If I look tired, he brings me a glass of water. If I look stressed, he asks me if everything is okay at the hospital.
Children try to comfort us in their own sweet way, and it is up to us to allow them to help us and accept their help. Mother’s Day is not meant to make us sit on an unreachable pedestal. Some degree of vulnerability can make mothers a little more human. Be vulnerable, and next time when your child offers you help, do accept it. It will definitely make your journey a lot easier and bring a smile to your face.
The word that best describes a doctor’s life is- “unpredictable”. Every day is a new day that brings on its own challenges. In our battle with disease and death, we win some, and we lose some. There are days when we come home elated, and …
I have been pathetically camera conscious for most part of my life. The moment I know someone is taking my picture, I tend to stiffen, I don’t know where to look, and I smile weirdly. It’s not hard to guess the end result. The awkwardness …
When I was growing up, the new year meant sending and receiving greeting cards to and from friends and family. For over a month, the postman would continue to deliver bundles of actual greetings almost daily. As a child, it was most exciting to receive cards and we would eagerly wait for them every day. By January of every year, our house would be full of colorful greetings from friends and family from all over the country. Many times these were accompanied by a short letter or a note. At times, we would receive letters from long-lost friends and it would help to rekindle the forgotten relationship. Every card that was received brought in loads of memories with it and we would fondly remember the good times spent together. We would religiously make the effort to respond to each one and add the new senders to our annual greeting card sending list. The Archie’s and Hallmarks of the world did make life easier when it came to sending wishes to our loved ones. And I think just like me, many people saved and cherished these cards for years to come. They were precious!
Cut to 2023, the greeting cards, the card shops, the postman, and sometimes even the relationships have faded into oblivion. Today sending wishes usually means a short WhatsApp message… sometimes as short and cryptic as “HNY” ?. Most messages are forwarded creatives and images. No offence meant to the senders! Responding to new year wishes is a cut-copy-paste phenomenon, at times even without downloading the image sent by the other person especially if the wifi speed is not upto our expectations. (For all you know it may not be a new year message at all.) The second day of the new year is usually spent deleting all the images that have clogged the phone gallery. In the tsunami of hundreds of messages there is no time to actually think about the person or the relationship. Our lives in the 21st century are indeed very busy and time is a commodity that is always scarce.
As I grow older I tend to think a lot more about the years gone by. I have been blessed with some really good friends and the list keeps growing every year. I do believe that we can make friends at any age and of any age. It could be a child or at times someone a lot older. There is no formula for making friends. It just happens. However, like every other relationship in this world, friendship also needs work and effort. Life tends to happen to all of us and our friends tend to slip away even without us noticing. As I write this, I am also guilty of allowing this to happen to my own friendships. At times years pass by and suddenly one day we realize that we could have done a better job of supporting each other a little more.
Last year for me was about rediscovering old friendships and making new ones. At this stage in life, I realize that one more publication, one more conference, one more book written, one more presentation, one more difficult surgery or one more career goal achieved cannot bring greater happiness than one more friend cherished or one more new friend made. The rat race is exactly that… a rat race. If we wish to live life king-size, we have to first stop being a rat.
Friends are precious and if you have a few to grow old with, you are lucky and blessed. In this new year cherish them and make that little extra effort to keep up the friendships. If not a greeting card, do make the effort to pick up the phone and give them a call. Nothing can be more rejuvenating than a heart to heart conversation with a close friend.
Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year full of friendship and love!
Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker
©️Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker Mumbai locals…. Rightly known as the lifeline of this city of dreams. Mumbai will not be Mumbai, if it were not for its local train network. For some, it’s a necessity and for others more privileged, it’s a choice. But no …
©️ Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker He saw me standing lost in my thoughts, He noticed that I didn’t ask for a coffee today, His old experienced eyes perceived that I was not my usual self, He waited for the moment when I would look at …
©️Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker
This morning as I was getting ready to go to the hospital, I looked in the mirror and a streak of grey hair caught my attention. I paused for a moment and a bittersweet emotion passed through me. As a doctor, grey hair bring in a lot of validation from patients. Grey hair signify experience and who wouldn’t want to see an #experienced doctor. Rather who wants to see an inexperienced doctor! I guess no one.
But what does “experience” mean in its true context?
Experience means years of rigorous training to hone our skills to be able to diagnose and treat illnesses.
Experience means to be able to effectively ease physical and mental pain and save lives.
Experience means understanding, guiding and providing support to hundreds and thousands of people day in and day out for years on end.
Experience means to be able to communicate effectively and give out the correct information without taking away hope.
Experience means doing our job and doing it well consistently.
Experience could also mean, exposing ourselves to deadly infections in order to save someone else’s life.
Experience means accepting that sometimes the worst patients may get better and the most unexpected ones may get worse.
Experience means knowing that sometimes despite all our efforts, things may still go wrong.
Experience means realizing that #nature is the third element between a doctor and a patient.
Experience means accepting that this third element, that is nature, will always remain more powerful than any advances in medical science.
Experience is finally a lesson in humility ….. and if we have learnt that, we are truly experienced.
Dr Aparna Govil Bhasker
My father is known in the family for his humongous collection of stamps and rare first day covers. All through my childhood, I waited for the day when he would pass this precious collection to his first born child, which is obviously me! Well, as …