Medical/Surgical Camp

With my tenure at Swaminarayan Akshardham now officially over, I departed on a week-long medical/surgical camp to the Vindhya Hills of Uttar Pradesh. An overnight trainride (in sleeper class, for those of you familiar with Indian train systems) brought us to the small hamlet of Mirzapur, where, after a half-hour drive in a Tata Sumo caravan, we arrived at the Ashram of Devraha Hans Baba. Perhaps some more on him later.

The camp leader was Dr. K.S. Charak, a colleague of my mother's from medical school. He is the chief of surgery at one of the leading hospitals in New Delhi and very well respected. He is also known as one of the world's foremost scholars on Vedic Astrology. He is a Renaissance Man - a trekker, a spiritualist, a surgeon, an astrologer, and deep thinker. Accompanying him were 6 other physicians and surgeons. Together, along with three nurses, and 5 technicians composed the volunteer healthcare team that would provide free medical services for one week to the villages surrounding the Ashram. The group also included family members of Dr. Charak, colleagues of his from his hometown near Jammu, and a cooking crew to make meals, bringing the group total to about 35.

This group worked tirelessly for 7 days straight, waking at 6:30 AM and going to bed past 11:30 PM. They performed surgeries (major and minor) and treated all sorts of illnesses. I'll just stick to the highlights.

Surgical Camp Highlights

The throngs of people that swarmed the camp the first day made it very clear that the economic principal of overconsumption of public goods was definitely in effect. The first day was crowd-control duty for me. I had to learn to be forceful in Hindi, which was a challenge, considering I'm not particularly good at it in English. Oddly, the most difficult part was trying to keep their curious eyes from peeking into the out-patient examination rooms. Three doctors would see patients simultaneously, and one small area had been curtained off for physical examinations. But people would just crowd around the door to watch the doctor at work. Or try and peek over the curtain into the examination area. The strange part was, basically 85% of the men that came to this camp were suffering from the same problem - the hydrocoele. I'll let this website explain it in detail. Suffice it to say that most men had only to look between their own legs to find the problem the doctor was examining behind the curtain.

I tired quickly of crowd control because as soon as a line was formed, someone would try to jump the queue and in doing so, the line would disintegrate as everyone then tried to make sure they weren't cut in front of. So I went to surgery. I spent 3 days of the camp helping out in surgery - there were all sorts of cases, hydrocoeles, hernias, gall bladders, urinary bladder stones, hystrectomies. And Dr. Charak and his team performed all of them in a makeshift operating theater. The most amazing part of this OT was that it was the most disgustingly filthy and bug-infested room when we got there, but after a good 24 hours of cleaning and fumigation, it was as sterile as any major hospital theater. There were scrub protocols in place, and despite conducting over 80 surgeries in this environment, there was not a single post-operative infection. I got to help out, too! I assisted on a gall bladder removal that was complicated by extensive liver bleeding, a couple of hernia cases, and a cystolithotomy on a 10-year-old boy. When they said it'd be hands-on experience, I didn't realize they really meant hands-in experience. Reaching into a living human body and clamping a bleeding vessel shut is a bit eerie the first time, but definitely an amazing feeling the second time. All in all, I helped out with 6 surgeries and didn't mess up on scrubbing-in even once, despite the extraordinarily strict scrub-nurse.

I've finally figured out that I learn by doing. If I hear, do, then teach, I remember. Gotta remember that for medical school. More camp stories in the next post.