A Monday; Contraception and Spinal Muscle Atrophy
I made it to the lecture hall just in time for the Gynecology lecture, lucky me, things will make sense now. I was late for the first lecture so that one was a miss.
The topic of the talk was "Contraception"
This would be interesting as the topic is greatly important not only cause it's a FAQ in the exams but because it is a human need. Anyhow from the topic I remembered how much of an ambiguity surrounds this topic, when should it be used, how should it be used, when it shouldn't be used and why should it be used.
In the Pakistani setup, most of us never have "The Talk" given by our parents and the basics of human reproduction is usually revealed by a friend who has heard about it from someone else, perpetuating this cycle of "information" then slowly the "knowledge" expands. Even though from puberty to adulthood the journey has completed, still the "decency" of this society will never let the parents inform their children about what their body is going through during puberty and that this is a normal physiological process and talking about it considered a Taboo and in some families a sin.
So with that mindset almost all of us enter the med school, never actually focusing on how important this information is and how vital it is for the development of the society. Soon we are sitting in a lecture hall and this topic is being touched upon during a lecture hall, still most of us aren't serious enough, now I lay emphasis on the word "enough" cause most of us are interested in the topic but just for the sake of the final score on the exams. "That talk" is important cause if given by the parents it teaches you that it is a vital part of evolvement & development and whatever is concerned with it requires some action and thought. In short if parents break that Taboo and give their kids some information about it when they're growing up, it will yield a much positive mindset of the society. Contraception is a need now, look at the population growth rate and then at the resources, people need to practice it.
Then it was time for Paeds ward again, so back to the hospital. I did a cerebellar exam today, the mother of the child was telling of how much stress she has been recently, being at a hospital in another city as she was tending to her sick sister in law, she was away from her kids for almost a month or so. She said, I came back four days ago and both my kids were sick, so she brought them to the hospital and then she said she had barely slept more than 4 hours in these last 4 days. Mothers deserve credit but it's not only the children who should appreciate them, the husband should also appreciate his wife. After all, this isn't an easy job.
In the ICU there was an interesting case, a 6 month old child and she is a very beautiful child. Unfortunately she has a rare condition called Spinal Muscle Atrophy. This condition damages your motor neurons, you can say they are like electrical cables which supply the muscles of your body and without the proper electrical cable your muscles can't function, since they aren't supplied there is loss of muscle mass and it leads to an early death as they eventually lead to the damage of the respiratory muscle and the child isn't able to respire thus life ends there for that child. Overall, the life expectancy is 18 moths for the majority. It results from a genetic problem.
Her mother had a total of six children, two more of her children had this disease and they passed at 7 and 6 months of age, her other three children are perfectly fine. This woman was helpless, this condition has no cure, slowly the child is losing the strength in her muscles. Heartbreaking really. Every time I see something like this, it pains me a lot, may medical science progress far far and may we find cures for these life limiting and life threatening conditions.
I'd like to say that Appreciate the women in your life, your mother, your sister, your wife and your daughter whoever you have, appreciate them cause they are nothing less than magic.
Well that's it for the day.
Read, share, comment and follow. Thanks
The topic of the talk was "Contraception"
This would be interesting as the topic is greatly important not only cause it's a FAQ in the exams but because it is a human need. Anyhow from the topic I remembered how much of an ambiguity surrounds this topic, when should it be used, how should it be used, when it shouldn't be used and why should it be used.
In the Pakistani setup, most of us never have "The Talk" given by our parents and the basics of human reproduction is usually revealed by a friend who has heard about it from someone else, perpetuating this cycle of "information" then slowly the "knowledge" expands. Even though from puberty to adulthood the journey has completed, still the "decency" of this society will never let the parents inform their children about what their body is going through during puberty and that this is a normal physiological process and talking about it considered a Taboo and in some families a sin.
So with that mindset almost all of us enter the med school, never actually focusing on how important this information is and how vital it is for the development of the society. Soon we are sitting in a lecture hall and this topic is being touched upon during a lecture hall, still most of us aren't serious enough, now I lay emphasis on the word "enough" cause most of us are interested in the topic but just for the sake of the final score on the exams. "That talk" is important cause if given by the parents it teaches you that it is a vital part of evolvement & development and whatever is concerned with it requires some action and thought. In short if parents break that Taboo and give their kids some information about it when they're growing up, it will yield a much positive mindset of the society. Contraception is a need now, look at the population growth rate and then at the resources, people need to practice it.
Then it was time for Paeds ward again, so back to the hospital. I did a cerebellar exam today, the mother of the child was telling of how much stress she has been recently, being at a hospital in another city as she was tending to her sick sister in law, she was away from her kids for almost a month or so. She said, I came back four days ago and both my kids were sick, so she brought them to the hospital and then she said she had barely slept more than 4 hours in these last 4 days. Mothers deserve credit but it's not only the children who should appreciate them, the husband should also appreciate his wife. After all, this isn't an easy job.
In the ICU there was an interesting case, a 6 month old child and she is a very beautiful child. Unfortunately she has a rare condition called Spinal Muscle Atrophy. This condition damages your motor neurons, you can say they are like electrical cables which supply the muscles of your body and without the proper electrical cable your muscles can't function, since they aren't supplied there is loss of muscle mass and it leads to an early death as they eventually lead to the damage of the respiratory muscle and the child isn't able to respire thus life ends there for that child. Overall, the life expectancy is 18 moths for the majority. It results from a genetic problem.
Her mother had a total of six children, two more of her children had this disease and they passed at 7 and 6 months of age, her other three children are perfectly fine. This woman was helpless, this condition has no cure, slowly the child is losing the strength in her muscles. Heartbreaking really. Every time I see something like this, it pains me a lot, may medical science progress far far and may we find cures for these life limiting and life threatening conditions.
I'd like to say that Appreciate the women in your life, your mother, your sister, your wife and your daughter whoever you have, appreciate them cause they are nothing less than magic.
Well that's it for the day.
Read, share, comment and follow. Thanks
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