Understanding the basics of ‘practice'
I am a surgeon's daughter. My father, Dr Sanjeev Kadlaskar is my first teacher. He introduced me to the world of medicine from a very young age appreciating my leaning towards medicine. My practice today, thus, has its roots in those early interactions with my father's practice. I learned from him many things; the most important among them is how to interact with the patient and the thorough knowledge of the diagnosis. "It is important to clinically examine a patient than prescribing many tests,” reminds my father even today. “As a doctor, it is essential to chase the satisfaction in your practice that you have given the very best and everything you got for the patient’s health,” this lesson has been the guiding light for my practice for the past decade.
It is by observing him that I have understood the importance of holistically guiding my patients with their diet, posture, exercise than merely prescribing them medicines. His interactions with patients mesmerise me; his concern and dedication for the patients inspire me to be a better doctor every day.
Underlining the significance of ‘practising life’
Dr Megha Sonawane, a renowned anesthesiologist practising in Maval area for 39 years, is an inspiration for her zeal for life. Besides medicine, she has achieved proficiency in almost everything that she does from gardening to cooking to arts and much more. I have learned the importance of living a fulfilling life besides learning a lot about emergency medicine and about staying calm while treating emergency patients.
Even after knowing her for so many years, I am amazed to see her learning or sharing her experience of learning something new. Her zeal to learn new things and keep herself updated has inspired me to keep myself updated and explore new things in life, personal and professional.
Practising the art of ‘giving’
Dr Krishna Page is a renowned dermatologist from Pune. Though I have known him since my childhood as my father’s friend, I became his true student only after my internship. Dr Page has taught many students; he has always shared knowledge without withholding anything. His continuous effort to learn about every new development in the fields of dermatology and general medicine is inspiring.
He is a strict yet patient teacher and a stern yet compassionate person. He focuses on not just helping patients with medicines but a little beyond; he guides his patients to get the medicines at affordable prices. He is all for the patient, not distracted by anything else at all – this lesson is valuable for the young doctors like me operating in the current market and the society with many distractions, personal and professional.
The quest for knowledge and positive change
The founder of Homoeopathy Dr Samuel Hahnemann advised:‘Aude sapere’ or ‘dare to be wise.’ It is excellent teaching from the master doctor, indeed, who led by example. Dr Hahnemann was unhappy with the then modes of treatments, bloodletting, for example, so he set out to find a better and a different system of patient care. He worked tirelessly until the age of 80, dedicating his life for medicine. Yet, besides medicine, he excelled at many things from chemistry and pharmacy to over a dozen languages.
In 1816, Dr Hahnemann observed that not all cases showed permanent cure and in certain cases, it was just the disappearance of the symptoms with homoeopathy. Despite being the renowned doctor, he did not shy away from accepting the flaws in his system and reinvented himself. He introduced the concept of miasms when the science of genetic study was nowhere in sight. He had the foresight to see the base of certain diseases in genetics; which has become the essential tool in the practice of medicine to predict the course of a disease or to predict the health graph of a person or a community.
Dr Hahnemann has written in great detail about the rules of practising homoeopathy, about record keeping, about chronic and acute disease treatment in ‘The Organon of the healing art’ first published in 1810. I refer to the 6th edition, really the in-detail annotated version of the 5th edition by the master himself published a year before his death in 1843. Dr Hahnemann’s life is an example of reinventing self, to break it all and start from the beginning, and his forward-looking vision is genuinely awe-inspiring.