Originally posted by: CaffeineMuggle
You mean Welcome back M 🤭 Remember, how apprehensive I was before about Aryan being bitter but the fact that you made him a little bitter but not caring has melted all my apprehensions away.
Oh, I left the latest update of Full Circle after seeing your reply (You have me fully trapped with your FFs 🤧🤌) Compassion is definitely a morale booster to the patients and hope that they will be better, it's always a delight to find such Docs, and touchwood since I have spent a lot of my time in hospitals due to someone close, she found the best Docs as well who made her believe that she will be able to cross every obstacle towards her path of recovery despite her age AND SHE DID. But a lot of credit goes to the Docs for providing that encouragement and strength. To understand and feel her side. Now, that's compassion. But the reason I talked about the Gynecologist was because, here in India, they have the worst reputation. I don't know if you have heard about the countless horror stories ?
I have heard such tales from people I know, from shaming unmarried women for being sexually active, not prescribing birth control if not married and even if required for PCOD and such syndroms, in some rural areas : its about the husband stitch.
It gets worse and worse. In such a place, Dr Verma sounds like a dream. Thinking about the patient's consent first, guiding her to make a choice.
It's NEVER soap box, I learn so much from these interactions with you. The previous interaction we had about grief left such a big impression on me that I did something I didn't think I was capable of before. It felt like an achievement and growth, and I know I had to clear my mental barriers but A LOT IF THE CREDIT goes to you. You pushed me forward so I am very grateful. I try to take everything I absorb from here and it's wonderful communicating with you. I feel privileged tbh.
ALSO, ON THAT NOTE SO EXCITED FOR TOMORROW. NEW ENTRY YAYYY.
UPDATE YAAYYY.
LOOKING FORWARD TO TOMORROW
Thanks for penning this down M !
@bold: oh those words bring me so much sukoon. As you know I am huge advocate for compassion in medicine and it warms my heart to hear that your loved one had the right team around her to pull her through what sounds like one of the toughest times of her life.
@bodlitalics: Wow!! So I did train in a government hospital and then did a internship in a rural setting for several months. I never liked OB-Gyn to be honest, as a medical student, the thought of delivering babies made me want to run as far away as possible. While I was not unkind to people, I do recall being so overwhelmingly busy in clinic that there was little time to practice compassion, the lines were endless, and I am not even exaggerating. What would tug at my heart back then that I can clearly recall was the lack of education, for example not knowing the difference between your own abnormal secretions and ummm...your husband's ...secretions, the complete lack of say in having babies, women were essentially just birthing them one after the other 18,19, 20yo with two babes on their hips and a third one on the way that were coming in to be seen with their mother or mother-in-law who was also pregnant.
I do not recall discrimination in terms of premarital sex or birth control. In fact, we welcomed birth control! God we wanted everyone on birth control 🤣

I learnt the importance of patient education in one of these busy clinics. Once, I prescribed gelusil (antacid) and a antifungal suppository to a patient, assuming that she would know which one goes where and for what purpose. Saw her a week later with an unremitting yeast infection and was like, huh? The medication did not work only to find out she had been using the wrong medicine, via the wrong route for the wrong purpose!!!!! That memory is forever imprinted in my brain.
Lastly, my first brush with complete lack of compassion came during OB-Gyn but in the rural setting. A woman was actively birthing a baby and was screaming in labor - dude, no epidurals or any anesthesia for that matter, here, right?? - so she is screaming and one of the nurses was screaming even louder at her to stop screaming (I'd like to insert an eye emoji here...I mean WTF), all the while I watched as a terrified wide eyed intern (remember how I said I wanted to run away from delivering babies?) singing the f*ck f*ck f*ckity f*ck f*ck song in my head. Anyway, so while birthing said child she had a small BM, the nurse gave her swat on her thigh (pyaar waala nahi, angry waala) for doing that!! Another memory imprinted in my mind. I was literally in tears at being powerless to stop the nurse's behavior towards that patient. How anybody can be so unkind at a time that is so traumatic and momentous was beyond me.
Anyway, to finish out my story, time brought me back "Full Circle" and here I was a newly minted intern, standing between another woman's legs, ready to deliver the first baby ever! Good goddamn, I was shaking in my shoes. But the experience with the team around me was a complete 180. Kinder nurses, almost loving and tender, calm, cool, collected. Yes they were ragging on me outside the room because, hey, I was an intern and that's what L&D nurses do, but whoa! they took such good care of the mom that it was one of the multiple reasons I cried that night --- in addition to the fall from the adrenaline rush of delivering the first baby, almost dropping it into the trash can below because I had not anticipated it being slippery as an eel - caught it by the feet!!! And then went out and bawled. 150 deliveries later, I still cannot say it is my favorite thing to do on earth and if I had a do - over I would pick some other line of medicine 🤣🤣
The point is, you are right, just like FC, there is highlight to this story too. It is what you pointed out, the lack of compassion for women in general, the fact that OB-Gyns who should be in your corner sometimes are not, and the stigmata that surround women's choices and preferences when it comes to sex and child bearing. I am so glad you are discussing this. 🤗 I still cannot believe you are the bachcha you claim to be😉