Day 21

Day 21

May 1, 12:03 pm, Vellore
Well I can't believe that it is already the my last day here in Vellore. How quickly it has flown by! It has been a good week. I did dermatology this week and found it very interesting. The doctors were super, as I have come to expect here at CMC. They really seem to know their stuff and are generally very friendly and willing to teach. On outpatient days, I spent most of my time working with Dr. Anisha. She is a PG registrar, which is sort of the equivalent of our residency. She was great. She taught a lot and showed me a lot of interesting things. Dermatology is a great rotation to do because even when you don't know what is being said between the patient and the doctor, there are always plenty of physical finding that you will be able to observe. In just a few days I saw so much more derm pathology than the rest of my rotations back home combined. It was great.

I saw a number of cases of leprosy, or Hansen's disease, which was very interesting for me. I've already posted my paper on the topic, but I'll just say that it was so great to learn about this disease because it is so different than what I imagined it would be. You have these horrible ideas of what leprosy is, this stigma... but I never really knew anything factual about it. I also saw a number of really bad cases of pemphigus. Wow. Talk about a horrible condition to have. There was also a lot of psoriasis, a case of chicken pox in a middle-aged man, an eruptive xanthoma, melasma, tinea versicolor, and many other things. So yes, outpatient days were quite enjoyable. And I learned a lot about physical exam... especially for leprosy.

Rounds were also pretty good. Ma'am, as they call their attending, was very nice to us and made sure to include us and teach us about the cases. It was neat to see how quickly a bad case of pemphigus could turn around with proper treatment.

So all in all, being here has been a great experience for me. It has really been neat to see how medicine is such a common language and can bring strangers from different cultures together. It is basically the same here as it is back home, only the details and resources are different.

I've also been reminded here how much we are blessed with back home. We have so much at our fingertips and I know that I take much for granted. However, I have also see that you don't need much to be happy. It is all a matter of how you look at things and I know that I look at things differently now than I did before coming here.

I'm feel very grateful to those who provided the resources and made it possible for me to come here. If you read this, THANK YOU! It has been wonderful.