Khepology

 One of the things final year of med school brings into one's life, besides anxiety attacks, dark circles and constant fear of failure, is the ordeal of "Khep classes". This weird term refers to a set of extra ward classes which final year students take under the guidance of Post Graduate Trainees (PGTs) in order to gain clinical exposure and learn the art of patient examination. 

At the very beginning of the year starts the crazy race of getting into "Khep" groups under various PGTs. Some outstanding students join multiple groups for the same subject to earn themselves the golden title of "Khepologists". While the morning ward classes go predominantly unattended, many students leave themselves entirely to the mercy of these all-important "Khep" classes. Such is the craze about these classes that one sees friendships breaking over one question: "Why didn't you add me to this particular khep group?" The answer to : "Which Khep group did you join?" is guarded as a national secret worth dying for by most students who would rather answer questions about their private fantasies than about khep.

Each of these "Khep" groups has an organizer- in some lucky groups it is the PGT himself/herself while in other groups the responsibility of organizing classes, convincing Mr. Busy PGT, finding patients and informing others falls on a poor, hapless student. Thus, a tough life begins for the poor organizer who always has to answer questions like, "When is the next class?", "Why don't you go and convince Mr/Ms PGT?" . After countless phone calls, unanswered text messages and unfulfilled promises when a class is arranged after all, one feels as if one has already won a gold medal for being "Khep organizer of the year". But at the end of 2hrs of standing in the stuffy ward, one's fellow khep mates comment, "This class was a bit theory based. Why don't you tell him to make the class more clinical examination oriented next time?" This leaves the poor organizer to wonder, is all this worth the effort?

By the end of the year one realizes that maybe all the khep organizing was not worth the effort so one shifts to practicing on friends in hostel. These group study sessions, jokingly called as "Hostel Khep", yield much more in terms of learning the clinical methods and getting them right. As a bunch of people get together to share their cumulative knowledge gathered from books, ward and khep, one also finds probable questions, and answers to one's doubts. But theses classes also come with two major follies: 1) You cannot be sure that the method you agreed upon is indeed correct. 2) None of the findings are generally present (unless your hostel buddy is secretly harboring some disease).

But as it is said, everything has its pros and cons. While the effectivity of the khep classes depends on the enthusiasm of both the students and the teacher, and the effectivity of group study depends on the knowledge of the group members, but at the end of the year anyone who wants to learn truly will get the basics somehow or the other. 

Lastly, if khepology is an art, it has certain formidable, talented artists who attend two khep classes for the same topic of the same subject under two different people within the same evening. Kudos to these rare talents because of whom the art of "Khepology" is achieving new heights every day.

Photo courtesy: Shriya Mukherjee

Beginning of the end

 February- the month of realizations, is finally here. In this month some people realize their love for the next door neighbor girl when they get dolled up in sarees for Vasant Panchami, while some less fortunate people, like the medicos, are faced with the realization that more than half of the exam syllabus is left to be covered with less than 30 days to go. As the shortest month of the year brings bittersweet pangs of love for some people and all-bitter palpitations for upcoming exams for others it stands apart from the other months as the torchbearer of change. This change takes place in our routines, our mindsets as exam tension exhausts most of our thinking capacities, in the weather around us as winter takes a bow for the time being and in the number of cups of our beloved chaye we consume per day.

Sometimes exam season makes one weirdly productive- some people find time for exercising (something that is easily forgotten on normal days), some lazy bloggers dust the cobwebs off their creative writing skills and get back to work, while some voracious readers complete entire novels on a single day just to experience the thrill of reading forbidden books during the exam season.

While at other times the mounting pressure proves so great, combined with the sleep-inducing weather that even a cup of coffee becomes a z drug which easily lulls one into a comfortable sleep, followed by a surge of tremendous regret after waking up, scrolling through some shorts to clear the mind of guilt, and falling back to sleep with a 'clear mind' after an hour of idle scrolling.

Routines prove useless, all plans fail, study group doubts send chills down one's spine as one realizes that they are from unseen and unheard-of topics, and mostly friends keep piling up their depression on one another so that the net depression level of the group never steps down from the constant high value. 

With so much on one's plate even the Valentines week just round the corner seems bleak for the hapless medicos. While February brings in so much trauma it is also the month we cling to for dear life. We fervently wish the fragile February a long long life just to prevent March from marching in with the heavy load of the formidable, preposterous "MB", whose full form evades us even as we appear for it one last time.

So let some good memories and sarcastic observations bring light into this February. Get ready for a series of trips down the memory lane in this series of entries, so that we can all hold on to our leftover sanity as we prepare for the least awaited arrival of our "Most Beloved"(MB).