A Renowned Laparoscopic And Bariatric Surgeon From India.
©️ Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker This morning, I had to fly to Ahmedabad for a conference (#YoungHSICON). Last night, the Prince of Wales intrigued me so much that I couldn’t stop bingeing on the period drama that I was watching on Netflix. Even after …
©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 explained her condition to both of them. She had to kept in the ICU for a few days in view of her age and associated conditions. Over the next few days, whenever I visited her on my rounds, I would ask for the relatives so that I could explain the clinical progress to them. However, every time I would be disappointed as no one would be around. The old lady was practically left all alone in the hospital. The staff informed me that the son and the grandson took turns to visit her every night for a short while. No one stayed by her side during the day.
Elderly patients sometimes tend to get neglected by their families. This is especially true for elderly women. They are a vulnerable in every way and an extended illness can sometimes push things to the brink. With this thought, I discharged her hoping that they would take care of her at home. For some reason, I kept thinking of her from time to time during the next week.
A few days later, they brought her to my clinic for a follow up. The old lady was in good spirits however, the attendants were extremely hassled and worked up, once again, reinforcing my thought process about neglect. They had a whole lot of complaints about her not heeding to any medical or dietary advice. The more I heard from them, the more I judged them for taking care of her poorly and treating her like a burden they were forced to carry. I felt bad for the old lady and wished I could do something to make things better for her.
After I finished checking her dressing, I asked for her son and daughter in law to come in. I gave them a nice little speech about the need for emotional support after surgery and chided them for not being there for her at the hospital when she was admitted.
After my monologue was over, they revealed that for the last two decades they had been taking care of five senior citizens at home. Father, mother and three unmarried sisters of the father lived with them. The old lady was his aunt and not his mother as I had assumed. His parents had passed away a few years back but the couple continued to take care of all the three aunts. Two of them were completely bed ridden and dependent on them for everything. All of them were octogenarians. None of them had any source of income. The gentleman and his young son were the only earning members of the family. The family along with the three aunts lived together in a small two room apartment in a Mumbai chawl. They were barely making ends meet. Frequent hospitalizations of the family members had set them back financially and they were perpetually under debt. The husband and his son had no option but to go to work in order to survive. The wife needed to be home to take care of the other two aunts. Getting help was an extravagance they could not afford. Every day was a struggle. With their meagre resources in terms of time and money, they were trying to do as much justice as they could. It was impossible for anyone of them to be at the hospital 24 by 7. In their eyes, the hospital was a safe place where they knew that the old lady was being taken care off well and being supported by the staff. They did as much as they could in the given circumstances.
I was amazed at how much they were doing. The couple had not only taken care of their parents, but were also taking care of the extended family. Contrary to my assumption, they had gone beyond the call of duty.
People lead tough lives. When we meet them in the hospital, we get to see a very small glimpse of their lives. As doctors, all our attention is on the patient’s well being and in the process sometimes we tend to judge the care takers. While the patient is the recipient of all our care and empathy, the caretakers usually get no credit.
After they finished narrating their story, the couple smiled and looked as though a burden was off their chest. Sharing a piece of their life with me, would not really change much for them. However, a little less judgement and a bit of empathy would probably make their journey slightly more tolerable.
As for me, by digging a bit deeper, I lightened my own burden of judgement.
©️Dr. Aparna Govil Bhasker
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 …
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 …