Why I take photographs

Today I went out with my camera. Captured something interesting. I began to think as to why I'm into wasting time to take these photos. Well, there are many reasons that come to my mind. Here I've put two of them.

Feel free to comment :))

Weird reasons on Why Lister House was the second best place on earth!!

• I absolutely had no responsibilities of keeping my room clean, except on the LOHA week though! But no, I’d to start a month earlier to prevent any temporal association between the two!
• All services were available at a walk’s distance, 24x7.

Book lending services – Srimant’s room

Noodles corner – Arindam’s room

Internet café – Udit’s room

Tools & accessories, bike etc – Parth’s room

Movie rentals – Udit/ Parth room

Instant tea – Sudarsan’s room

DJ club – Rishab’s room

Bhangra club – Surojeet’s room

Refrigeration – Kislay’s room

A peaceful nap – Bala’s room

A friendly fight – Sakthivel’s room

Gossip – well, enter any room!

•  All I had was one room. So If I’d misplaced something, it was easier to locate it. If it had been my house, I had to ramshackle a larger surface area.
• Anything and everything was permitted. Even a movie @ 2am with Rathna Pratheep and Suresh Kumar when we had ward leaving that day!
• Mini medi-quizzes were often conducted either in my room or bala’s.
• I always had company. Whether I wanted to make the day productive by reading all evening or just spend it by roaming around Pondicherry, I was not alone.
• My postal address was very simple. “320, Lister house, JIPMER, Pondy”. Even if the pin code was not written, letters would still land on my lap.
• If you don’t get the opportunity to go to a cricket stadium for a match, the Lister house TV room is the second best alternative.
• Lister mess helped my taste buds to get accustomed to any weird taste in the world.
• It was here that the “eco-friendly man” in me, grew up. At any point of time, if you enter any of the lister restrooms, you’ll find an improperly closed tap leaking. (But you need to exercise great caution on that. Cause once when I touched a leaking tap, that 50 yr. old antique broke completely. What was dripping in drops was now gushing!!)

Whatever said and done, it’s still the second best. (Home is the best place to be on this earth.) However, if free full access was given to enter nearby hostels, maybe I’d rank it the best!! :-p

I am thankful to Dr. Ramachandra Rao for granting me permission to stay in the hostel even when he knew that my house was just 5 min from JIPMER.

Missing my room,

Abialbon Paul

A New Beginning....A Rising hope...

Touch me Not

This post is going to be useful to you if you're a medical student. But every one must know this as it is going to help you protect yourselves when you make a visit to an hospital. (either when you are sick or when visiting a sick friend)

You'll be knowing that disease causing microorganisms are present everywhere. More in dirty places but even the cleanest of places contain bacteria, viruses and other microbes in some quantities. The hospital is one of the places where these disease causing microbes are present in large numbers. And there's a difference!! These microbes are way too dangerous compared to the microbes present elsewhere. They are more virulent (have the ability to cause disease) and are drug resistant (the available medications don't work well in treating them).

Those people working in hospitals may have some immunity against them. But still they may fall prey anytime or they may be carrying microbes home and infecting their family members. 


So where are the disease causing drug resistant lethal microorganisms present in the hospital??
Everywhere. Even the places where you least expect them.

What you don't see.

So here are some simple tips to keep yourself safe (both for medical personnel & laypeople visiting hospitals please take note)

• Do not touch the hand railing of the staircase in the hospital. Some of us tend to touch the hand railing even though we need no extra support. It's just a subconscious habit. The hand rails are used by the numerous patients in the hospital. So huge number of microbes are constantly deposited there. And by touching them we help in the transport of microbes.

• Do not lean on any wall/the lift cabin.

• When you press the lift call button, use some object other than your finger (preferable to wait for someone else to push it :p :)) 

• If you happen to wet your hands, do not use any towel provided by the hospital (those near wash-basins)

• Do not touch the patient bed railings

• Wash your hands with soap and running water for 2 complete minutes after coming into contact with any patient. Hand-washing is superior to rub-on disinfectants.

• Wash your apron separately. Use dettol along with the detergent. Preferable to use hot water.

• Remove your apron before you enter you house and leave it separately. Don't let family members come into contact with the apron. Take a bath every evening when you return home.

These are just some simple suggestions. The idea is that don't unnecessarily come into contact with objects which are handled by many people in the hospital (mainly when they are used by the patients).

Being a medical student makes you responsible for protecting yourself from these infections and also prevent the innocent people @ home getting infected with notorious bugs.

Please do not take this lightly. Many of my friends have suffered from Tuberculosis, Enteric fever, HBV etc. And further, when people at your home fall sick, you won't have an idea that it was due to the microbial load that you carried home.

Take care!

Share you views below.

Paying for my own disease - lesson learnt from a patient

Mr. V, a 49 year old middle class, married, father of two, developed hepato-renal syndrome following chronic liver failure. He decompensated rapidly while he was admitted in the ICU and suffered a cardiac arrest from which he could not be revived. Means, he died!
His liver failure was attributed to his alcoholism. He'd been consuming alcohol in increasing quantity for about 8 years!

Sad story indeed. I was quite amused. He paid for his alcohol and that made his sick. I estimated that he spent around 2.5 lakhs for alcohol. In other words, he paid for killing himself!!

"Mr. V is the biggest fool of all time", I mused and returned to my department. As I was running up the three flight of stairs which I'd to take, I suddenly realized that I was getting a little bit breathless. It was because I was getting a bit fatter with time. In my mind I made plans to reduce my weight as I walked the corridor.

As I was still walking, a flash of realization hit my head.


"You paid for you fat", a little voice in my head whispered. 


Was followed by a flow of thoughts...


Yeah! I paid for the unhealthy food at outlets like the KFC, Subway etc. I paid for enjoying all 


I paid for the petrol, I paid for the bike and I use it instead of walking short distances.


I paid a huge sum for my smart phone which is actually preventing me from using my brain and puts me at risk of Alzheimer's disease early in life.


I paid for my laptop. I paid for internet connection. I connect with friends and relatives online instead of the good old meetings, hugs etc which reap health benefits.


I pay for the electricity and I pay for the water and I use it so lavishly. I'm endangering my planet and I'm making a worse environment for me to live.

I pay for the television, I pay for the washing machine.....I pay for many things and I am slowly harming myself.

Am I fooling myself??

Not that I'll totally cut my expenditure and live as a miser, but I understand that I've to make responsible choices.

My life in a line

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When doubts blur you destination...

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What I learnt from my juniors

TEAMWORK BECOMES A SUCCESS WHEN YOU DON’T MIND WHO GETS THE CREDIT

For the CMC Epidauria Mediquiz 2012, 11 teams from the batch of 2k10 and 2k11 represented JIPMER. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time so many teams have come together from JIPMER to participate in any quiz. And fortunately I happened to accompany them to CMC- Vellore that day.

The prelims consisted of 50 questions. After the prelims got over, there was a brief discussion of the answers. I went to each team to enquire how much they’d score.  Some of our teams had scored 35-37 while one team scored 40. I’d expected the cut-off to be around 35.

One of the girls’ team consisting of Dharanya, Vinodhini K and Hemavathi had scored only 32. They had made some silly mistakes. I was sad because I’d lot of expectations on this team. They had performed consistently well in both the mock quizzes that I’d conducted. Guessing that I was a little upset, Vinodhini told me that JIPMER team would surely get selected and that JIPMER would surely win. Thought she was disappointed too, she was happy about her fellow team getting selected.

What astonished me was the absence of even a speck of jealousy! These people had worked hard to win, yet they had a strong sense of togetherness.  

Well, what happened is quite well known. JIPMERites rocked the quiz. All the six teams selected for finals were from JIPMER. Obviously the three prizes went to JIPMER.  Vinodhini’s team aka The Terror team also got selected and they came third.

When Spiders unite they can tie up a lion !!

Moving ahead, day by day!

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