Diary of a Doctor

I have not written anything deeply personal in recent times, but I have decided to share a bit about my journey in the past few months to encourage people who might find this post helpful. I matched into a Residency program (which is a postgraduate Training program for doctors in their desired specialty) in Internal Medicine and I would be starting residency very soon. Just typing the word "Residency" alone is giving me goosebumps.  I asked “ Siri” on my iphone what I should be doing before residency starts in June. Apparently, “Siri” is very helpful with its artificial intelligence, and gave me a list of things to do with a general theme of relaxing, chilling and having fun. A few residents had given me that advise while on the interview trail. I asked a third year resident on one of my interviews at the “resident-mixer”( a gathering to meet with resident doctors at a program to ask them questions, usually before the official interview) and the young man looked me in ...

This article is particularly relevant at this time in commemoration of the International Earth day. 22nd of April is usually dedicated to that effect. This is a time set aside to have conversations on how to ‘Save the earth’. Over the decades, global issues like climate change, deforestation, loss of habitats, wildlife trafficking and illegal poaching, unsustainable agricultural practices, pollution and pesticides have led to a lot of detrimental changes to the planet. All these activities have had a negative impact on wildlife generally. The theme for the Earth day last year, 2018 was on End Plastic Pollution. I am not necessarily talking about the political action and huge civic participation where people march, sign petitions, plant trees, clean up towns and roads to accelerate work towards conservation and sustainability. My goal in the post is to highlight the simplest things we can do to make the earth a better place for all to live in from our own corners of the world...

Hello people. Trust you are well. Medical news alert!!! Are you aware of the fact that there is a New Aspirin guideline? I know this could be really confusing because one cannot help but wonder why there is so much confusion with aspirin. I remember when I was back in medical school, the teaching was that adults 40 years and older should be on a baby aspirin a day to reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke. The beauty of medicine is that learning is unending and research is constantly on-going. Evidence-based medicine is the goal. Taking a low-dose aspirin daily to prevent a heart attack or stroke is no longer recommended for adults age 70 or over, according to new guidelines. The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association reversed previous guidance that recommended adults over the age of 50 take a baby aspirin a day to prevent cardiovascular problems. If you are over 70 years old with no previous stroke you shouldn’t take aspirin due to ri...

March is National Kidney month so I decided to publish this article to help promote kidney health. Pain is not palatable. Yet pain is nature's way of warning us of what could be lurking within the human body. It's almost like a warning sign to deal with whatever is causing the pain. Many people have devised different ways to deal with their pain. Some pain are physical while some are deeply emotional. I am talking about the first one today. There was a day I was at the airport, innocently waiting in line for my turn to check in my bag when I looked far ahead of me and saw a man trying to reduce the size of his luggage probably because it was beyond the recommended weight of checkable luggage. Then with my eyes caught a large package of pain medications. Specifically, Advil which happens to be a non steroidal anti-inflammatory. You seriously cannot blame me for seeing it. I committed no crime. You can call it "lookery" if you like. I am simply very observant...

February is usually referred to as the month of love.It is a season that emphasizes the importance of love in our lives. Coincidentally, I want to address the importance of friendship to your health. Apart from the myriads of obvious reasons there are for having friends, research has shown that friendships can have a major impact on your health and well-being. Good friends are actually good for your health. Friends can help you celebrate good times and provide support during bad times. Friends prevent loneliness and give you a chance to offer needed companionship.Perhaps if you are even lucky, you get them to encourage and motivate you to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive drinking or lack of exercise. In a 2010 meta-analysis that combined data on more than 308,000 people across 148 studies, for example, researchers found a strong connection between social relationships and life span. The size of the effect rivaled that of better-known health-re...

Happy New year friends. I hope you are as excited about this wonderful 2019 as I am. May it bring our way loads of goodness in perfect health. Last year I had New year resolutions, but it was a struggle at some point in all honesty. I did a post on how to stay true to your resolutions last year which was quite helpful. You can read about it here if you have made resolutions. Hence, I learnt a lesson from my experience the previous year and this time around I only have personal goals I intend to achieve. My plan is to take baby steps and grow. I believe little drops of water make the mighty ocean. You might wonder, what is the difference between Resolutions and Personal goals. Let me explain briefly. A resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something, while personal goals are plans that involves a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something. Simply put, resolutions set you up to fail from the beginning, while plans involve outlining sensible ways to ach...

The holiday season is said to be the most wonderful time of the year. Perhaps, it is so because you get to see a lot of pretty decorations and everywhere looks so beautiful and inviting. It is a time you get tempted to just laze around on a soft couch right in front of the fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate, watching your favorite TV show with no care in the world. Alas, this is not always the case, because people usually set out to outdo whatever it is they did the previous year or subtly engage in a mental competition with their next door neighbor, making so many people push themselves beyond their limits. For many, it is all about the Christmas traditions which makes the stress level astronomical because of the perceived 'minimum standard' which has to be matched every year. Please, don't stress, RELAX! Remember Hooke's law in physics? That is the law of elasticity. This law states that, for relatively small deformations of an object, the displacemen...