Night at the Hospital- A Guest Post by Atmadeep Banerjee

Atmadeep is a doctor who used to be a quizzer and debater, back in college. Most of his time now is spent at the hospital or at the study desk. In his spare time, he likes reading and cultivating a growing interest in philosophy and geopolitics. I met him in August 2012 at a Poets of the Fall concert and we've been friends since! This is something he shared on Facebook recently and it caught my eye. Have a look and welcome Atmadeep to the blog people!

The Bilge Master

There’s a small room at one corner of the hospital, that used to be perennially bustling with activity. Even in the middle of the night, on any given day, residents and interns would be flitting in and out, gathering paperwork, vials of blood and all the other mundane tools of daily work. It is here that I sit awake one night in late June of 2020, trying to remember what life used to be like in this residents’ room. Scattered memories flash before my eyes like a montage out of a film: worklists prepared by sleep-deprived residents, cold meals shared at 4 in the night, differentials passionately debated by seniors, barely funny jokes laughed at uproariously at the end of a tiring shift. It seemed surreal. Like memories from a past life, long gone.

I remember I used to be so afraid when I first joined as a junior resident over a year ago. I would rush into this very same residents’ room a million times every night and ask my senior to verify my diagnoses and re-check my management plans. Those days of hand-holding are long gone. I’m trusted to handle the night-shift on my own now. The seniors are always just a call away, manning their own stations at the different wards and intensive units, but they have faith in me and as do I. However, today, that is a hollow victory.

It is an unusually quiet night. As with all residents, I’ve learned to be distrustful of these idle hours after dark. They have a tendency of lulling you into a state of lowered vigilance – which you can ill afford, especially in these times. “A doctor’s work is never done”, goes the quote from Park’s textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine. And before you know it, the façade of tranquillity comes crashing down in an instant, as a staff member comes rushing in to inform me of a new admission. Another poor soul whose own body is failing him. Another set of anxious faces praying desperately that their family doesn’t end up being yet another tally on the wrong side of a statistical sheet.

Once the patient is stabilised, and the relatives counselled, I return to the room. “Cytokine storm”, “ARDS”, “DKA” – seemingly alien jargon that gets bombarded at our citizens through their television screens like some sort of apocalyptic foretelling with little explanation. Then there are the snake oil salesmen, ready to fan the flames of fearmongering to make a quick buck. I wonder how those outside the medical fraternity feel in these moments of crisis – scared, confused, wondering if it’s karma, divine will or just the absurd indifference of the universe?

A drop of sweat trickles into my eyes, blurring my vision. An unpleasant reminder of exactly how uncomfortable a PPE is, especially while working at a non-air-conditioned hospital in the middle of summer. This PPE is the 21st century rendition of the iconic white-coat – our greatest inheritance from our forefathers in the medical fraternity. Today, it feels not like a privilege, but a burden. It is stifling to stay in, impossible to see in, sickening to walk in, and draining to work in.

But it is a reminder that the men and women, who first wore this white-coat, faced the same nemeses that we used to scoff at till a few months ago. They wrestled with the same foes, without the privilege of the antibiotics of mass destruction that we launch with the push of a syringe today. They went to war with unknown diseases, armed with nothing but grit, courage, a begrudging respect for the enemy, and unending compassion for the souls that were ailing from its blows.

It is the same white-coat of Dr Jonas Salk who refused to patent his Polio vaccine, of Dr Barry Marshall who swallowed Helicobacter pylori bacteria in order to prove that they cause peptic ulcers, of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy whose birth anniversary we celebrate today. And most importantly, it is the same white-coat that has armoured the generations of doctors across time and geographic boundaries who worked tirelessly and did their best – the ones who aren’t immortalized by the textbooks, but whose actions echo on in all our lives today.

This PPE is more than a medical equipment. It is a talisman. It protects our physical selves and those of our patients and families, but more importantly, it galvanizes our spirits in our moments of greatest despair. It is a symbol of the faith that our forebearers have earned, and the trust that is our privilege to repay. It is a reminder that every moment we’re in the wards, in the clinics, in the OT, at the laboratory, or the study desk, the spirits of healers who came before us are guiding our hands and watching over us.

The sky outside is a bit less dark now. The birds have started chirping.

It seems we shall make it through this night yet.