Dharma gets surgery

Being medical students and doing social work on the side sometimes seems like we’re doing two totally different things, but this past weekend was a chance for us to bring our two worlds together. Dharma, a child from Ramavaram, was brought in to our hospital on Friday for a minor surgery. It being a new experience for him and his family, his parents asked us to be there and take them through the procedures. At first it seemed like we wouldn’t really know when the surgery was going to happen, and we were all waiting, hoping that someone would call his name soon. After a while, the three of us that were there decided to go in and talk to the surgeon. When we tried, though, he was very brusque and told us to just wait until the name was called. We tried again after a few minutes, since Dharma’s parents both came to the hospital and we knew that they really couldn’t afford the time off. This time the doctor took us in, and Benedicta and I scrubbed in on the surgery while Aruna waited outside with the parents. The procedure itself seemed simple enough. I had the opportunity to get some hands on experience with mopping blood and holding clamps and scalpels, and whatever other little things the surgeon allowed me to do. The surgery took about half an hour, after which we dressed the wound and took Dharma and his parents to get meds as well as give the biopsy for histopathology. The whole process took about 3 hours, but we were able to send Dharma home, having taken care of all his medical expenses. Today he came in for his follow up, but he came alone without his parents, which made all of us think about how hard it is for some of the people that we’ve met to take time off work even for medical attention. It really reinforces how vital it is that we continue to take doctors and medicines to them rather than waiting for them to come to us. Dharma is doing fine now, and I have to say that I’m grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of the process.