Last week, I had that standard call for advice but with a new twist. After the usual pleasantries, I was asked, “My daughter is deciding her future. Do you think she should be pursuing medicine as a career?

Despite judiciary and state intervention, is there enough awareness amongst ordinary citizens how their occasional chance of public enjoyment and assertion is harmful to others is another thing? A sensitive subject explored

When we examine the belly of patients with abdominal-pain, we are taught to carefully look for scars. These convey important information. Interestingly, scars also bear testimony to several cultural and surgical trends of certain periods of history.

As the junior most house surgeon at a Mumbai public hospital in the ’80s one almost sleepwalked through work. But even from that foggy memory some incidents come back in a flash, triggered by current events. This is one of them.

A sonography showed a pockmarked shrunken liver typical of cirrhosis. Further tests disclosed she was positive for Hepatitis C. That single bottle of blood had transmitted it. It was just a single transfusion, likely not needed, which almost sealed Sunanda’s fate.