Saving lives: Surgeon’s handiwork
Volume - 1
"The reason we do surgery is because, ultimately, we feel we’re doing something that makes a difference. "
Sheila Fraser
My work as Resident Surgical Officer (RSO):
The SHO post for me was for one year I worked for one year as SHO in Unit B. I was then appointed as surgical Officer in the Emergency department for four months. This was because I had started my job as SHO in early May 1963 whereas everyone else from my batch, who got a paid job, started on 1st September 1963, which was the regular time for new jobs to start. As I was holding the rank of Resident Surgical Office (RSO) already, while I was working in the Emergency Department, I was posted, as RSO, to Unit A which was headed by the Chairman of Surgery, Prof Srivastava on 1st September 2023. He was workaholic. I had to work doubly hard when I was with him. I was supposed to be there for 12 months, but Prof Srivastava kept me in his unit for 6 more months. Being kept in Unit A for one year meant that when I went to the Orthopedic unit for 6 months only.
The fellow who had stood first had already got the job of Demonstrator in Surgery. The pay scale was the same as SHO rate for first year and then same as RSO. The Demonstrator supposed to do some ward-based teaching, but in practical term up to 75% of their time should and would be spent in looking after patients and doing surgery. This fellow as Demonstrator was attached to the Unit A whose head was Prof Srivastava and remained there for 3 years as none of other unit-heads would accept him.
The Head of Department had the largest number of patients and he was also administrative-in-charge of Tetanus ward and the burns ward even though individual patients were admitted under the Head of 3 units according to their on-call days. The official bed allocation for his unit was 85 beds but most of the days the number would exceed 110. There were two SHOs and 4 House Officers (Interns) in the unit from September 1964, one more than in the other two units as the number of beds under Unit A was more than other two units. Internship was introduced from 1964 batch.
The fellow who became demonstrator seldom came to the hospital. He would go to the college and gather some students and do some teaching and then disappear by lunch time and go home. I tried to allocate him some cases but firstly it was difficult to find him and secondly even if I gave him a few cases to deal with on the day when we would be on emergency take, quite often I found that he had not dealt with the management of these cases or had not operated on these patients at all and had disappeared as usual by early afternoon.
