Thursday, June 28, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Commentary: Childhood insult was an odd reminder of American heritage (The Detroit News, 5/16/2012)
May 16, 2012
Commentary: Childhood insult was an odd reminder of American heritage
By ARJUNE RAMA"Go back to your own country!" shouted a neighbor from her porch. I heard this as I was taking a shortcut through her yard from the neighborhood soccer field to my house during the summer between seventh- and eighth-grade.
While one might expect my first response to be stomach-burning anger, my first feelings were of pure surprise. I thought to myself, "But ... this is my country ..." It wasn't until I did a faceplant into my bed that I burst into tears. I felt confused. I felt ashamed. I began to ask myself, "Do I not belong?"
I was born in Detroit and graduated from the same neighborhood school where I went to kindergarten. I don't have an Indian accent. I don't say this as a point of pride; it's just a fact. The country to which my neighbor referred is a place I have visited twice — once as a baby and once when I was 11 years old. In my opinion, I was as Michigan as they get. As a child I would forget that I didn't look like every other Grosse Pointe teenager. Human eyes face outward.
A little background on my family. My mom and dad were born in Chennai, India. My father came to Detroit to receive training as a general surgeon and then sub-specialized in vascular surgery at St. John Hospital, where he has been treating patients for over 30 years. My mother earned her MBA from Wayne State at night while managing our household.
Despite her hectic schedule she made time to tutor me in chemistry, which is fitting because she also used to teach chemistry at a local college. Since graduating, she has worked in banking in Metro Detroit for nearly 15 years. So while my parents were born and raised in India, they have spent the greater part of their lives in Michigan. Their roots are Indian but their hearts, minds and citizenship are red-white-and-blue.
I'm an American citizen with Indian heritage. I'm married to an American citizen with European heritage. We have a child who is an American citizen with Indian and European heritage; she's a living, breathing symbol of the American "melting pot." I've never felt more like an American than I do now.
To the woman who yelled, I'd like to say this: Thank you for reminding me that we're such a young country that we don't always know a true American when we see one.
As an aside, if you need some minimally invasive vascular surgery by an American who was trained in your neighborhood, lived in your area longer than you, and loves his country, I know a guy. Maybe we can provide some banking assistance from an American who studied locally and understands the economics of the area like the back of her hand.
Either way, let us know if we can help you out — it's the American way.
Arjune Rama was raised in Grosse Pointe Shores. He will begin his psychiatry residency at Yale University School of Medicine this July.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Seizure management as seen through Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Here is my first attempt with the web-based presentation platform prezi.com to weave medically relevant fiction with clinically applicable information. My goal is that you can read the text with with some sidebars that are interesting and informative such that the clinical material is more memorable. The presentation is best viewed by scrolling over the lower right corner of the bottom bar and clicking "Fullscreen." Also, you can zoom in and out as you please by scrolling your cursor over the left-hand part of the page where you'll find "+" and "-" signs.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Common errors on psychiatry rounds as seen through Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar"
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The above excerpt copied into my notebook is from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1971) with my annotations.
Plath presents her protagonist Esther Greenwood's initial evaluation by the rounding team. She describes the unsettling feeling of suddenly being addressed by a "troop of young boys and girls" with an older gentleman, presumably the attending physician. I've circled Esther's statements to her treatment team in blue.
In sum we see the following problems:
1) No introduction to the patient by the treatment team delineating the names or various training levels of the crowd (medical student? intern? resident? attending?).
2) Practitioners forcing a cheerful smile as if patients can't suss out real from fake.
3) The need to appear pensive when evaluating psychiatric patients (the 'Hmm...').
4) The desperation of medical students/residents to appear correct in the eyes of their superiors fostered by the current style of clinical medical education (a trainee going so far as to correct a patient regarding her own sleep habits).
5) Neither the students nor the attending address any of the four issues she raises regarding feeling lousy, being unable to sleep, feeling unable to read, and experiencing a lack of appetite.
5) No discussion of the plan with the patient who is swiftly turfed to another provider.
Overall, I think this passage serves as a simple resource to teach third-year medical students some common errors found on psychiatry rounds as seen through the eyes of a patient.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
NYC to SLC (The Salt Lake Tribune, 2/11/2012)
NYC to SLC
“So, are you converting to Mormonism?”
“Are you going to get another wife or two?”
These are some of the questions I was asked
when I told my friends that my wife and I were moving from New York City
to Salt Lake City for work. At first I laughed them off, but after
hearing the same questions over and over, I asked myself, “What’s with
all the Mormon-bashing? When did that suddenly become OK?”
I imagine that if I were moving to San
Francisco, no one would ask me if I was coming out of the closet. If I
were moving to Detroit, no one would dare ask if I was going to buy a
gun to carry to work. And yet, when it comes to the LDS Church, its open
season for jokes that border on ignorance and often cross into outright
bigotry.
The most surprising aspect of these barbs is
that they often came from people who belong to minorities that have been
stereotyped and marginalized into oblivion: Muslims, homosexuals, among
others. Often the people who made these comments are some of the most
tolerant and accepting people I know in almost every other respect.
And what has been my “Mormon experience” in Utah? I hardly notice it at all.
I think people have knocked on our door once or
twice. No one has suggested that I take on more wives. In fact, the
mainstream LDS Church denounced that practice long ago. When I’ve
visited the Salt Lake Temple grounds I have been approached a couple of
times with offers of more information about Mormonism. But when I
declined, the young women handing out pamphlets respectfully allowed me
to go about my business. In fact, if I went to the very center of any
religion and didn’t get solicited, I’d be halfway disappointed.
Allow me to explain our particular situation and thereby qualify some of my statements. We live in a fourplex occupied exclusively by
graduate students or hospital employees near the University of Utah, so
we likely get less exposure to religious proselytizing than most. I am
sure our location contributes at least in part to our not noticing the
Mormon influence about which we were constantly warned. That being said,
here are the four major differences I have noticed in Salt Lake City
which are a function of it being the center of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints:
1. Beer on draft at a restaurant/bar must have
an alcohol content of 3.2 percent or less by weight. Bottled beers are
unrestricted in alcohol content.
2. All beer purchased at convenience stores like 7-11 must meet the 3.2 percent rule.
3. All liquor or beer with an alcohol content greater than 3.2 percent must be purchased at state-run liquor stores.
4. These are the nicest, most polite people I have ever met.
As you can see, three of the four differences are related to alcohol.
There also is a quality that is undeniably
welcome, especially to an interracial couple from out of state. My wife
is Caucasian and I am an Indian-American. When we walk down the street
pushing a stroller carrying our half-Indian, half-Caucasian daughter,
well-intentioned people approach and speak in high-pitched baby
gibberish, just like in any other city.
While I don’t mean to sound like I work for
visitsaltlake.com, I can honestly say that I have never lived in a more
pleasant and simultaneously more misunderstood city than this one.
Arjune Rama and his wife moved to Salt Lake City
from New York City in 2010. He just completed a psychiatry internship at
the University of Utah.
© 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
#7 - "i won't back down" (tom petty cover) by Arjune
this is one of the most important songs to me. the original tom petty version gives me strength when i'm at my lowest of lows. i just got through a really tough situation so this is dedicated to my beautiful and patient wife, angelic daughter and the rest of my incredibly patient family who sacrificed so much to help me be successful. I can't say thank you enough. Thank you thank you thank you!!!
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