EDITORIAL

Dr. Venkita S. Suresh

Group Medical Director, Kauvery Hospitals, India

Only a handful of medical journals choose to publish poems.

It is a very small list; the two that readily come to mind are the redoubtable NEJM, and the reflective Annals of Internal Medicine

And the KAUVERIAN!

Now you come to know why!

Kaanthal, our insightful poet who expresses her incandescent thoughts iridescently, wonders in this issue ” Where does time fly to?”

She writes:

The moments bygone

Should serve as memories and lessons

Not deprive us of a future worth existing in

Not force us to the cliff of depression

The several case reviews published in this issue are lessons drawn from memories of caring for patients in Kauvery Hospitals

Vidya writes, from the ER at Chennai, on debates about the efficacy of application of the cervical collar in spinal immobilization of trauma patients with suspected spinal injury.

Drs Nagarajan and Arivarasan from Trichy write about something we never wish to encounter- the Flood syndrome- to spontaneous umbilical hernia rupture followed by a sudden rush of ascitic fluid.

Drs Rakesh and Keerthana from Chennai publish the first report to come to us from general dentistry on Periodontitis, an inflammatory condition affecting the gingiva and supporting structures of the teeth. Very recently dental surgeons pointed out an unexpected fall out from wearing masks during COVID times, that, in many people, it lowered standards of oral hygiene

Our Covid warriors from Tennur, the captain, Dr . Dominic, and his lieutenant Dr. Ivan, highlight the presentation of Erythema Multiforme in COVID-19. something which the NEJM from Boston also noted and published in recent times.

Orthopedics has done a relay-race publication, the baton now carried by Dr. S. Kalaivanan, Dr. S. Chockalingam and, Dr. PR. Ramasamy, with a report on Secondary Synovial Chondromatosis of the Knee Joint.

Kiruba, flying the Nurses’ flag high, thought hard on the Oxygen debacle which choked the management of Covid hypoxia across the length and breadth of this country and has written on Oxygen conservation strategies, for her colleagues on the floor

Dasaratharaman is with you again, making Statistics not risky, and as easy as falling off a log!. He tells you that “Risk is the probability that an event will happen. It is calculated by dividing the number of events by the number of people at risk!’

One day Dr. Bhuvaneshwari and I discussed both the great tragedy and quiet courage of patients and families, confronting severely debilitating, inexorably downhill, and end-of-the-road neurological illnesses. Within a day she wrote ” Dignity matters”, which is a deeply personal story about her beloved patient who she had the great privilege to support and care for, with the greatest concern, respect, and admiration, through her terminal illness

We recently highlighted Covid Nails, a new sign. In this issue Dr Nagaraj high lights, a Cardiac Nail Sign, which is as old as the millennium, an ominous sign that flags pathology in the heart valves that carries pathology every where

Journal scan from my desk rounds up the issue. Besides nine other abstracts, it also carries a review of Sparks through the stubble, a film on dying alone in a pandemic, without an opportunity to say goodbye

Best regards

Dr. Venkita S. Suresh

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