Obstetrics and Gynecology
He had become a renowned surgeon, and one day, over a glass
of beer, he said,
“did you know I failed twice during my undergraduate—in
biochemistry and then in OG (obstetrics and Gynaecology)?”
40 years ago boys were not interested in OG. The entire
department, labour room and outpatient were avoided as far as possible. Most of
them had (or claimed to) only a minimum
working knowledge of the female anatomy and its function. They knew just enough
to shout “PMS” during loud class arguments. Not that this deterred them from very varied and interesting love lives.
A few men who were interested and wanted to take up OG as a specialty
in later life kept their interests very secretive. There was a tendency to
consider them voyeurs . “Who” was the general logic, “would want to spend their
lives working in a block which had a strange odour about it, was very noisy,
with scary loud screams resounding all
the time, and functioned as though there was no difference between night and
day?”
“What happened?” I asked.
I remembered that he had not even bothered to attend the
greater part of his posting. After signing in attendance he would disappear to
flirt with the nurses. He had not even delivered the required twenty babies,
let alone washed them afterwards. He managed to cajole the nurses into doing
both.
“Bloody woman examiner! Looked down her nose at me, handed
me the most peculiar forceps I had seen and asked me to lock them together. No matter
how hard I tried I could not. One blade kept facing the wrong way”.
This was rather hard to visualize. Obstetric forceps look like two spoons. They have to face
each other (so that the child’s head is
in between) and then there is a sliding lock mechanism. How could they not fit?
Unless he held them sideways, facing outward so that the lock would not slide. The
head would not fit either as there was no gap. This would have infuriated the
examiner.
“Do you know I saw her in Chennai recently. I went up to her
and asked if she remembered me. Wanted to show her! I passed and am now a heart
surgeon. ”
Perhaps it was a good thing he was a heart surgeon. All 6
foot 2 inches of him did not have to bend down and peer into people’s private
parts. He could stand up and operate without bothering to lock anything other
than the chest retractor!
“Did she remember you? ”
“Yes. Was quite insulting about it to. Actually said I
didn’t deserve my degree and wondered who had passed me! Almost called me an
idiot! Then asked if I was married. When
I said I was and that I had two children, she actually said that she thought my
knowledge of female anatomy must have improved!”
I stayed silent. When he was newly married, his wife had started
to vomit. He decided that she had early jaundice. He bought the most enormous
syringe (20 ml) his wife had seen to draw blood. She started to protest and
wail. He was impervious to all her pleading. All the results were normal. This
puzzled him no end and he asked his classmates what they thought the diagnosis
could be. Since most of the class mates were male, they made several interesting
suggestions.
“She may have an ulcer. She may have an urinary tract
infection.” Finally he demeaned himself enough to ask a female classmate. “Have
you done a pregnancy test?” It was positive and viola! the diagnosis was made!
Dr.
Gita Mathai
The
writer is a paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore.
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