Peektures!

I know you want pictures of mustaches (and ladies, let me tell you, they are something to marvel at!) But no one has their camera connector here at coffee dot com today. We will definitely get you some mustaches to look at in the future, certainly, so be patient and enjoy what I have below:

This is a cute picture of us on the back of the bus, on our first bus ride out of MGMCRI & RI, notice how empty it is. This was a misleading view of bus rides as all subsequent rides have involved mild panic attacks from claustrophobia. You might note my sweet adventuring hat that also serves to keep the 12 degrees latitude Indian sun off my pasty Irish flesh. Cute, huh?

Ah, home sweet home! You may note the partially constructed dorm that we are currently living in. They are working hard to complete it, though, and do something involving hammers from approximately 5am – 10pm every day. The insides are nicer and we very much appreciate the air-conditioners.

The previously referred to cow, Betsy. As you can see, Tim is trying to get a closer look and she is giving him a very wary stare.

More musings from Pondi….

As per the usual, Brian did an excellent job in covering what happened on the Pediatrics side of things here in Pondi. One comment from that… I am not entirely sure why they chose to put the pt on linezolid when the pt failed Ceftriaxone. When I asked the professor he said it was for resistant Strep Pneumo and not MRSA. If they are using ciprofloxacin on the neonates, wouldn’t moxifloxacin/levofloxacin have been a viable alternative??? 

From what I have heard (many voices in my head), the original musings were a hit! Allow me to add a few more and also update you on some of the previous posts…

– I was told to tell you all that “all” of us did not buy drums, only “most” of us did. If any of you can figure out who is happy that he/she did not buy drums, I have a present for you. Please comment below…

– Mustaches are still on, no one has fallen off that wagon yet (Brian never got on). We will have pics up once we are smart enough to figure out how to do that. Also, we have yet to figure out the penalty for the person that gets rid of the mustache first…. so if you got something please let us know….

– Still no signs of Betsy. I think that Betsy caught wind that Tim likes meat (esp steaks) and has yet to grace us with her presence again

– If you are ever in the neighborhood of Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, I highly recommend going to R.R. Caterers (the “dive” that Brain refers to). They have amazing tandoori chicken. This place will now be known as the Official Tandoori place of CIT2.

– The canteen that we go to for breakfast has started using a cash register today. The good thing about that is that we can now double check what we ordered and not get totally surprised with what appears on our plate (see: communication problems). The bad thing is that the canteen has lost a lot of efficiency which means that it takes a long time to get the right order. I’m not sure which is better…

– We had yet another rousing game of euchre yesterday. I believe that we will next be learning how to play pinochle. After that, apparently it’s on with travel Scrabble!!

– For the record, I’m still not married…

– I miss diet coke. The soft drinks that they have (all regular) really do taste like sugar syrup now. Fortunately, some of the restaurants carry diet coke (with 1 calorie instead of 0) so I have tried my best to get my fill on there.

– On our visit to Auroville, we had a “guide” that was no help. In fact, the most he did was attempt to steal a car that he thought was ours. Fortunately, Gopal saved the day and alerted the guide that the car was not his and that he could not have it. Then he sent him to a timeout…. at a meditation center…

Another day in Pondi

Greetings all, I hope that this day has been good for all of you. We were fortunate enough today to be present on rounds in the NICU. It was definitely a different experience. The residents would present to the attending (much like the US style) but it seemed different. I didn’t think that there was as much autonomy in terms of asking “what would you like to do next….” or “why do you think that x is happening”. Instead I felt it was more of a hierarchical style in which the attending would tell them what to do and they would do them. It was definitely different.

We came across a case in which a baby was still showing signs of sepsis and had failed 1st line therapy of Anti-biotics (Ceftaz and Amikacin). Needing to change the coverage, the team opted to start Piperacillin/Tazobactam and ciprofloxacin. I felt that the choice of Ciprofloxacin was an odd one as there are no indications for fluorquinolones in the Pediatric population with the exception of multi-drug resitant UTI’s and other infections. Brian, Alicia, and I had discussed this and thought that gentamicin may have been a decent alternative however Brian wisely pointed out that to start gentamicin would mean to check levels which may take a while to come back. It was definitely interesting and something that I will need to think more about.

The rest of the day will be for more of sight-seeing as I believe that we will be going to Auroville which wikipedia has told me is a “universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity”. I think that it will be fun and will let you all know what we thought of it later

And finally, some more random musings by yours truly

– I think that we look ridiculous with mustaches. I really want to shave it off but I am told by Alicia that I am not allowed to do that. There will be some penalty (of which we have not yet decided) for the first person to shave it off. For the record, my money is on Gopal to be the first one to shave it off

– No signs of Betsy today

– We all bought drums the other day. Some got the best deal (alicia), some got the one with the ornate markings (me), and some paid way too much for a really small drum (no comment)

– I have made a realization that I should not publicly bring up the beauty of Indian woman. What was meant to be a simple observation has now turned into a bride-finding mission by others (that some have termed “hopeless”). I feel that Gopal is now in search of keeping a priest on retainer to quickly get me married if someone happens to like me here….

Random Musings in Pondi…

So Brian, Tim and Brooke have done a great job in expressing the feelings that we had today at our first day on the wards. There really is no reason to rehash the things that I thought about it earlier, so I will just present some musings and casual observations of the CIT2 group: (FYI this is supposed to be humorous…)

– Tim has been fervently trying to become friends with the cow-next-to-the-hostel (whom I call Betsy). Unfortunately Betsy wants nothing to do with Tim. Poor Tim….

– I have succumbed to peer pressure and now will be joining the group in trying to become more South Indian, that makes the total tally 3 men with a ‘stache. We now need to work on Brian who keeps telling us that his Asian genes only allow him to grow 7 hairs randomly on his face. More to follow on this front…

– It really only takes 50 mg of Benadryl to take down the giant we refer to as Brooke. It also makes her itch free We will keep this in mind for later times…

– Speaking of Brooke, there seems to be a fairly large following of people that are intrigued by her height. I think that we have a great entrepreneurial opportunity in charging people 5 rupees to meet Brooke and 10 rupees for a picture. Gopal would like me to point out that this is not a CIT2 sanctioned activity

– We are now on Day 4 of malaria watch. So far, most of us have >15 mosquito bites yet there are no fevers. We will continue to update you on malaria-watch ’08. This means that the malaria medication might be working and the doxycycline is making us acne free. We win on both accounts really…

– Gopal brought up an interesting notion yesterday. He wanted to know what would be our “closer music” if we were going to close the 9th inning. He was less than enthused to hear that mine would be Bon Jovi’s “Living On A Prayer”. I’m not quite sure what made him unhappy about that, perhaps the fact that it is from a hairband (when I have none) or because of the lack of confidence that I have (hence the song)

– Indeed, coffee.com has become the CIT2 sanctioned coffeeshop. One way or another we will make it there perhaps daily….

– This is day 2 of the bus rides. Today was not as good as yesterday as there were roughly 200 people on the bus that was meant for perhaps 50. We are not sure that we will be taking the bus again however it would make coming to coffee.com particularly tough.

– Last night we learned and played a rousing game of euchre. We think that after consulting wikipedia for the correct rules of the game that we actually played it right….