The Educated Drug Dealer 🫀🫁🩺💉🩻

  Ah, biostatistics, or simply put, medical statistics —the noble(snorts!!) discipline that turns chaotic clinical trials into digestible truths. For me, it has the opposite effect- indigestion to a level it could possibly turn my ass into a cannon ball shooter. It is both a lifeline and a lingering thorn in the side for most of us. Why is it useful? I would be tempted to say: it has no use whatsoever for me, I’m not a particular fan of statistics ever since my high school years. Yet, I would be lying. Ever wondered how your go-to anaesthetic cocktail for that particularly complex case is truly superior or if that’s just personal bias? Behold! Biostatistics steps in like the Sherlock Holmes of clinical data, separating causation from coincidence. The great thing about it- It mocks you like Sherlock Holmes when you do not grasp what is supposedly an easy affair… Well, easy affair my ass. Between evaluating p-values, confidence intervals, skewed distribution and the mystical “power o...

  The history of anaesthesia is a blend of brilliance and accidental discovery—akin to your first time placing a spinal. Weirdly enough, it involved quite a lot of surgeons! Long before anaesthesia as we know it, the best pain relief options were opium, mandrake root, or good old alcohol. In ancient Egypt, surgeons used poppy extracts; in China, acupuncture might have been the go-to for some relief. Meanwhile, in Europe, you’d be lucky to get a hearty serving of mead before someone started hacking away at your leg. Speed was the motto- hack away, my surgeon, my knight in shining armour, so my pain can later on go away… or more likely, I go away. In ancient times, surgery was not so much a calculated medical procedure as it was a daring leap of faith with limited understanding of anatomy and a lack of antiseptic practices. Every operation was a risky affair. Death loomed over every incision, turning surgeries into high-stakes gambles for both the surgeons and the patients. What abou...

  In the grand coliseum of life, the blame game is often and sadly enough, the most cherished sport. Sometimes it is not even two people. It can be just be the two sides in our own head- the devil and the angel. Sure, the devil looks great: Damn Lucifer is ripped and witty. (Well, you will forget how great he looks when he told you there is no need for a morning pill because he was in total control. Four weeks later, surprise surprise when you are peeing on that little stick in the morning and seeing those red lines appear!). No muggle can succeed without a knack for tossing responsibility across the aisle, like a hand grenade lobbed to explode just precisely beneath the next-in-line’s ass. The good news is that he will not make a damn noise when he farts, ever again. Today, I bring you the tale of two titans in line for the next village head – Bob and Tom– both hell-bent on preserving their pristine reputations while branding each other as the architect of chaos: the modern Thanos...

  For the medical noobs, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is that part of the brain that regulates thoughts, actions, and emotions. If musings and mayhem don’t make sense to you, I think Google is a very good tool and, I do suggest- stick to social media with the infinite scroll. It will provide you with enough feel-good neurotransmitters to get through the day without even realising you have been lying on the couch just doing nothing. Here is not the spot to be for the highs, here is the place for the whack on the head and ass, similar to the one experienced by Indian kids(Note: not being racist here, I am from an Indo-Mauritian lineage) you know when those kids refused to sit down. That ass had just taken a hell of a beating from that ever so caring mother that used their cockiness as a lesson for the future. Ah sweet memories… N.B The infinite scroll was created by Aza Raskin and it forms the basis of why you lose endless hours on social media now. It is also called Doom scrolling(ma...

  While speed-reading news articles during my daily morning routine (besides the usual time-wasting on reels which I so often indulge in when I am bored), I just happened to glance at an article highlighting World Mental Health Day – October 10. Well, I would say, shame on me, I didn’t even realise it was. There are probably posters everywhere at the hospital I spend at least 50% of God-daily-allocated 24 hours at yet I didn’t even notice them. (To my work colleagues, if any, reading this- Do correct me if I am wrong.) That just tells you how often people can end up so fixated on other parts of their life that they just miss things that are looking straight at them- in my case, probably a huge poster of the abovementioned health day! Oh well, let’s just say – Mental health is a necessity we so often forget to incorporate in our daily routine, a powerful reminder of the invisible struggles. We so often think and treat physical ‘fragility’- weight issues, blood pressure, all kinds of...