Saturday, October 27, 2012

Cardioplegia... opening hearts...

[ Open heart surgery is any surgery in which you open the chest identify and put tubes to both Sene cava and Aorta , divert the blood away from heart and lung, pass it thorough a Heart Lung machine to maintain oxygenation and blood flow, open up heart chamber and do the surgery. Cardioplegia is a technique by which you use drugs (mainly Potassium Chloride) to stop heart beating while you work.

  When I chose medicine as a profession, I never knew what was lying ahead of me in my future. At every point of time when I look around I used (and most of my friends too often do) compare myself with my non medico friends. I see them heading companies, running firms, doing research. I see the facebook pics of them  posing in Switzerland, South Africa, US, or whichever part of globe u name it. Its often frustrating to sit in a dirty dressing room cutting through an ugly diabetic foot or listening to truly irritating and insulting abuses from seniors and even the local politicians or by standers. Sometimes you feel you made a terrible mistake by choosing to be a Doc. End less years of studies and you never even realize that you are growing old.

  But there are a few times you feel privileged to do what you can and feel proud to be in your profession.
And then,  you feel your heart stands still for a moment.

  I first felt that pleasure when I took the labor for first time. The feel of catching a new born infant and being the first one to handle him/her in this world is hard to describe and share.

  One condition I always loved to diagnose and treat was pulmonary edema. The struggle to take a breath is perhaps the worst thing a man can get. A couple of injections, and may be a little postural adjustment can make life a lot better for a patient in cardiac failure and give a sense of achievement back in your mind.

  Since I chose surgery as my stream, I may not see those patients any more. But I still see a lot of old men with big prostates coming with urinary retention. Some of them not passed urine for days and their bladder will be filling whole abdomen. Put in a Foley catheter and u watch the expression over face , u really feel rewarded. 

  To see a heart going still and then after surgery , it starting to beat again is one such experience which make you feel privileged. Leave aside all the worries ,technical and aesthetic aspects, i believe its one of the greatest achievement of medical technology. The sheer idea of stopping a beating heart with drugs, something which will never stop otherwise from your conception till your death and the courage to attempt that for the first time would have been a great adventure in Medical history. Just being back from Cardiovascular and Thoracic surgery, i once again feel blessed for I would never have other wise touched a real beating heart most of the people around will never know the feeling I had. 
  To all medical aspirants around all I want to say is that this profession is not easy to manage, but despite all odds, many times you will realize that your heart goes still for a moment or two.

     

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