ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

We entered the female ward, expecting to find an elderly, breathless lady. But we were faced by a puny little girl, who looked at us with anxious eyes and an apprehensive face. It was a cardiothoracic surgery pre-op ward and we wondered what could possibly have happened to this innocent girl. We walked towards her with perplexity and popped the first question- ‘what is your name?’ with as much charm and appeal as we could manage. She flashed us a smile and replied ‘Sushmita’ I took another look at her- she was dressed in a long colourful skirt and a plain white top. An artificial pearl necklace with a huge pendant hung about her neck. She had a very attractive face with particularly expressive eyes. Her hair was neatly combed into two long braids. She was thin and lean, but had a sense of enthusiasm about her. My friend seemed to have established a very good rapport with her in short time. As we spoke to her, I noticed that she was very amiable and polite. In fact, she turned out to be...

I walked across the murky, depressing entrance hall yet another time. When I had first walked into the hospital, the unpleasant ‘hospital odour’ was what had initially caught my attention. It wasn’t easy getting used to it, but gradually all of us adapted ourselves to the environment and even became a part of it. We began complaining about the melancholy setting less often and tried to make the whole outlook cheerful and optimistic. I walked with hurrying steps because the professor was punctual and did not like students walking into the wards after him. As I hurried up the steps, I was greeted by my enthusiastic batch mates who were in the midst of a seemingly interesting conversation. I took a quick look across the entire ward. Nothing seemed to have changed. The same patients were in their beds, most of them with blankets pulled over their heads. My batch mates were in groups, some of them checking out the patients’ case sheets, another group chattering enthusiastically about how an...