Rubber Shoes and Late Nights in Indian Hospitals

Today was set to be a very busy day. We woke up around 8, had a quick breakfast and were headed out the door to meet Dr. Banerjee at Medica. Our first meeting of the day was with a cardiac surgery anesthesiologist. This doctor gave us a completely new look at how temporary pacemakers are being used in India and gave us some real insights into the types of procedures different levels of doctors are comfortable with, as well as some of the key differences between cardiac surgeons and cardiologists thoughts.

When we finished our meeting with the anesthesiologist, we went back down to Dr. Banerjee's office. Dr. Banerjee was in the middle of a procedure, so the team decided to go grab a quick lunch at a restaurant across the street while we waited.

Dhananjay, Erin, and Shruthi in the purple Medica scrubs

As soon as we got back, Dr. Banerjee's assistant told us to head up to the cath lab as there was a temporary procedure going on that we should go watch. The doctors quickly showed us where the scrubs and shoes were and pointed us in the direction of where we should change. Once the three of us had all properly donned our scrubs, caps, masks, and shoes, we headed into the cath lab to watch a placement of a temporary pacemaker. The doctor doing the procedure walked us through every step he was doing and patiently answered all our questions when he finished. After the procedure, we doffed our scrubs and other protective equipment, and went to change.  As we were getting ready to leave we ran into Dr. Banerjee who was heading into another procedure and a breif chance to talk to him and thank him for all the meetings he set up for us.

Shoes in the hospital

An interesting thing about Medica (and most of the hospitals we have visited in Inda) is that everyone wears open toed rubber shoes in the operating theaters (which is what they call ORs here). Before entering the "sterile" areas, you are supposed to remove your shoes, put them on a rack, walk inside barefoot, and take a pair of rubber shoes from another rack to wear inside. We all get the different shoes inside the OT concept, but are still trying to understand why they all wear open toe shoes. Just another mystery of India, I guess.

We left Medica and headed back to the guest house around 5pm. When we got back, we spent some time catching up on work and emails and planning the rest of our evening. After another delicious dinner at the guest house, we headed to SSKM to go speak with doctors, possibly, see some more temporary pacing procedures, and find out what an Indian hospital is like at night.

Outside of the cardiology department when we arrived at night to SSKM

We got to SSKM around 8:30 and went to meet with Dr. Soumik. Dr. Soumik was at the end of an overnight on-call shift, but willingly allowed us to sit down and talk with him. We ended up discussing ideas and the landscape in India for about an hour and a half until it was time for Dr. Soumik to leave. As Dr. Soumik was leaving, he introduced us to another doctor, Dr. Chaudhry. This doctor had no idea about our project before hand, but was super eager and enthusiastic talking with us. After speaking with him for a bit, an emergency case came in and he had to run off.

Patient in the hallway at SSKM

We then went over to the doctors room to wait for someone to tell us about the temporary pacing procedure that was supposed to be happening. The doctors room was a small room that had recently been painted and had four metal frames with 2 inch thick mattresses on top for the doctors to sit. Dr. Soumik had pointed out to us that this was a huge upgrade from what it had been and that it was now suitable for humans. Around 11:00 we decided to head back since no procedures had happened yet and we have an early day planned for tomorrow (5:30am).

Anyways, we are off to sleep and prepare for our long day tomorrow!