It was our General Medicine Clinical Posting hour. As usual we were with our professors in white coats and with the stethoscope in one hand and the spiral note book in the other hand, taking rounds in the wards. This day I felt my professors were higly energetic and that they were explaining things with more interest than usual.
We reached the casualty and took the case of the patients in the regular area and moved into the Zero Delay Bed area in flocks with our HOD (Head of the Department) & Asst. professor leading in the front.
There was a patient with chronic renal (kidney) failure. He was an old patient and had some cardiac problems too.. This case was very interesting and the HOD was explaining his problems and its clinical aspects. We were standing around the patient’s bed facing the patient and our professor. All beds were having curtains to separate one from the other.
Meanwhile there was another patient behind us with the curtains half pulled. Since there was no enough space between the beds, we were standing in close crowds. The patient behind us had a small stature and was in deep sleep. He had covered his whole face. It was hard to make out that there was patient at all! Unknowingly i had kept my books upon him to free my hands when our professor asked to auscultate (to listen with stethoscope) the other patient. Later discovering that there was patient lying behind us, i felt sorry and grasped the book back and kept it on the near by table.
But I was thinking in my mind how dare the patient could sleep so when the senior doctor is just to him. There was no by-standers for him. Our professor was carrying on with the explanations of the complaints of the other patient. I, infact all of us, peeped through the curtain frequently to the ‘still patient’ while listening to our professor explaining the complaints of the other patient. Still he had no response; tired of standing for a long, I sat on the bed of the ‘still patient’, next to him, slightly pushing his legs to the sides. we did not know whether it was ‘he or she’.
Things continued, while 2 attenders and the nursing super-intendent came near that bed. I suddenly got up and smiled to them. They were seriously whispering to each other about something which we could hardly make out. The nursing super-intendent came nearer to the ‘still patient’ and drew the cloth from his face. We were anxiously waiting to make out whether it was ‘he or she’! We all stared to the patient’s face. The professor was still explaining the case of the other patient.
Suddenly, we felt something odd with this patient. It was ‘he’ in fact. ‘He’ was lying with his eyes wide open and the mouth relaxed and open completely! Oh my God!! I felt like something pass through my spinal cord all the way from top to bottom.
It was not a ‘patient’ at all! God had already taken his soul, and what we were seeing was his immovable for ever material body! The attenders wer arranging to move the body to mortuary!
We were startled to understand that we were near a dead body!
“You are in a hospital and you will come across a lot of such things; through out your career from here. Dont be distracted by all those. Listen to the class.” Professor reacted to our shock and continued with his class.
Later after the class, I enquired to the staff nurse about the ‘still patient’ and understood that he was admitted critically after consuming fatal poison and was a case of suicide.
I was thinking how close I had sit with the ‘still patient’!
