Ahem!

[Guest guest]

Confession time...

There was this teacher who could do nothing right especially when eye

surgery was involved (or so it seemed). As students ourselves it was

wonderful to have a blunderbuss around, our own attempts at successful

cataract surgery were superlative in comparison to his.

The most remarkable thing about this gentleman was speed (or the lack of

which). Even a simple act such a draping was grossly dramatized much like a

lady's first attempt at wearing a sari.

And then he had these big clumsy feet that would invariably get stomped upon

by heavyweights such as me, adding to the dramatization. A polite sorry

would receive a groaning " it's okay " amidst the staff nurses' giggles.

When finally the act of draping would be over our stumblebum would begin

with the xylocaine blocks. He would then explain the importance of a blunt

needle for the retro-bulbar block. I remember the first RBB that he had

demonstrated had lead to a retro-bulbar hemorrhage and the case had to be

postponed.

After going through the rest of the steps would come the corneal incision.

Ab-interno or Ab-externo? Well, he preferred the ab-externo step section at

the limbus. Only thing, his steps weren't vertical. The used to be

horizontal. That we thought would lead to better wound apposition. And that

was one thing he would never explain to us. It was much later that I found

out there was no such step incision.

Whereas his intra-capsular lens extraction would take up to 30 minutes to

complete, extra-capsular would take twice the time. But the later would be

eventful, with fluffy lens matter sticking to everything including the

endothelial surface. The lens delivery itself would be much like a primy,

painful and elaborate.

Those unequally and unevenly placed 12 sutures would be Diablo's dream come

true and finally two conjunctival suture tied tightly would make it look

like puckered pink lips.

Bandaging is an art, not modern art. The actual process would take some

minutes and there were a couple of times the bandage would have to be

replaced immediately on arrival in the wards.

While our regular OT used to have 6-8 cases our gentleman teacher would

accomplish only one such surgery in the same time as the rest were finished

off.

The post-op dressing on day-2 would be much like any Hindi movie, the

gradual removal of the bandage, the dramatic removal of the patch, the

patient's gasp " Arey! Mujhe to kuch nahin dikh raha hai! (mala kahich disat

nahi) "

And then our teacher would say " Babaji! Aankh to kholiye! (doley ughda) "

" Pandre pandre distey "

" Azun ved lagel "

" Kiti divas? "

" Daha, Pandra "

It was much later that we found out he had field defects due to a tumour of

the Pituitary. That was when he had left our college. If I get a chance to

meet him (I know where he is) I shall definitely apologize for having made

fun of him. And especially so because I had named him " chakram " and the name

stuck with the staff of our department even after he left.

Ravin '82