Editorial

Dr. Venkita S. Suresh

Group Medical Director, Kauvery Hospitals, India

Dear colleagues

KAUVERIAN the journal, like the river Kaveri, picks up what comes along its way- all gems of thought.

The lead article is Dr. Andrew Fenn’s update on the Tumor Board at Chennai, a very professional, thoughtful and thorough session which our oncologists hold every Thursday without fail. Patients now know about this. I met a lady who is a Ca-Oesophagus survivor who knew that her Ca is back after six years but was confident that the tumor board at her hospital has discussed her the previous week and would suggest solutions.

I once visited a “tertiary care hospital” in a developing country. I saw a cupboard labelled “Oncology drugs”. It held Prednisolone, Mercaptopurine, Cyclophosphamide, Methotrexate and Vincristine. I asked them” Do you hold your Tumor Board meeting?”. The answer was ” What is that? We treat all cancers with two or three of these five drugs.”

Dr. Aravinth and Dr. Dominic remind us of a lesson which has probably receded to the back of our minds- when dealing with PUO, we should keep Lymphoma among our differentials.

We at the Kauverian see very often how busily engaged you are with the daily grind- the unending clinical challenges that pop up round the clock. Yet you do amazing work with amazing results. To support you in fast – track publication of such work we now offer you a new section, the ” Short and Ultra Short” reports.

We launch that with an EPS Page, where cardiac electrophysiological interventions and results can be published during the same fortnight. We begin with a success story- a challenging WPW. The syndrome was first described in 1930, and first ablated in 1981.

We present a journal club with the intriguing title- the ” French Connection,” a movie that won five Oscars in 1971. Dr. Sheelu Srinivas, Dr. Ragya Bhardwaj and I discuss a unique French paper on Mucor mycosis, comparing its profile in France and India.

Two thoughtful teachers, Dr Vasanthi and Dr Reddy, teach us instructive lessons: Dr. Vasanthi about two challenges in anaesthesia in oral pathologies, and Dr. Reddy about organizing your chamber practice.

Dr. Subbaiah has kindly showered us with a large portfolio of diagnostic images which we have begun to launch, a few at a time.

Dasaratharaman is here with the Student’s T Test, which we learned and forgot from classes in biostatistics. It was not designed by, or for, a student; W.S. Gosset had to use that pen name because his employer did not permit him to publish research under his own name.

The Journal Scan from my desk, carries the highlights of ten recent papers. I recommend you read first about the human challenge trials in Covid-19 and then pick up some valuable tips on ” Quiet listening to patients!”

I once listened to such a patient at Kauvery Chennai. “Sun sets over a good life” is told here, along with a request to all of you to pen down immediately the ” patient’ s stories” you hear. You may hear some of them again, but some voices would have been stilled for ever, as this one. Such stories help us to remain rooted so that we shall always refer to a patient as a person and not as an “interesting case.”

Kaanthal, our young poet, is sensitive to the people who lead lonely lives; she writes about the ” grinding voice of silence that they hear up the lonely staircase.”

We close with an astonishing piece of original writing, a story from seven-year-old Arnav.

Haiku is poetry in three lines. Arnav is prose in three paragraphs!

Some medical schools in the US invite students from liberal arts to the study of Medicine as they believe an artistic mind practises the art of healing better.

I hope our budding storywriter Arnav, and Kaanthal, our accomplished poet, would consider Medicine as a career, and research into the prose and poetry of physicians’ practise, healing both pain and pathology.

Best regards

Dr. Venkita S. Suresh

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