A medical student reacts to a sign, “LISTEN”
Medical students of Trivandrum Medical College are routinely posted to palliative care during their community medicine posting. Following his visit to the palliative care centre run by Pallium India’s Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS), medical student Ananth Shajan wrote this on his Facebook wall:
“LISTEN” – the green board was the first thing to catch my eye. Having gotten used to boards requesting “Silence Please” in front of hospital wards and ICUs, it was a novel experience. And a revelation.
Pallium India. Make no mistake when you say that name. It’s a place that should be considered a true place of worship.
For those of us who compete with each other to examine each “case” and elicit findings, Pallium India demonstrated another dimension of medicine.
Palliative Care, for us, existed only in a corner of our thick medical textbooks until now. These Gods (to me they are the real Gods) and angels showed us that it can actually be practised.
We also realised that Trivandrum Medical College could produce real doctors and not only some who see patients as just a source of income.
Thank you, Trivandrum Medical College, for instilling in us right from the first year of our medical studies, the important message “treat the patient; not the disease”.
(Translated from Ananth Shajan’s Facebook post in Malayalam, by Pallium India)
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