1. An adult is one who has ceased to grow vertically but not horizontally.

2. A consultant is a man sent in after the battle to bayonet the wounded.

3. A doctor who cannot take a good history and a patient who cannot give one are in danger of giving and receiving bad treatment.

4. A man’s liver is his carburetor.

5. A minor operation: one performed on somebody else.

6. A surgeon should give as little pain as possible while he is treating the patient, and no pain at all when he charges his fee.

7. Abstinence is a good thing, but it should always be practised in moderation.

8. A rash of dermatologists, a hive of allergists, a scrub of interns, a giggle of nurses, a flood of urologists, a pile of proctologists, an eyeful of ophthalmologists, a whiff of anesthesiologists, a cast of orthopaedic rheumatologists, a gargle of laryngologists.

9. Asthma is a disease that has practically the same symptoms as passion except that with asthma it lasts longer.

10. Choose your specialist and you choose your disease.

11. Dermatology is the best specialty. The patient never dies and never gets well.

12. Even a good operation done poorly is still a poor operation.

13. Everyone faces at all times two fateful possibilities: one is to grow older, the other not.

14. Fifty years ago the successful doctor was said to need three things; a top hat to give him Authority, a paunch to give him Dignity, and piles to give him an Anxious Expression.

15. Have faith in the Lord but use sulphur for the itch.

16. Homeopathy waged a war of radicalism against the profession. Very different would have been the profession’s attitude toward homeopathy if it had aimed, like other doctrines advanced by physicians, to gain a foothold among medical men alone or chiefly, instead of making its appeal to the popular favour and against the profession.

17. If I were summing up the qualities of a good teacher of medicine, I would enumerate human sympathy, moral and intellectual integrity, enthusiasm, and ability to talk, in addition, of course, to knowledge of his subject.

18. If three simple questions and one well chosen laboratory test lead to an unambiguous diagnosis, why harry the patient with more?

19. If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems that way.

20. In diagnosis, the young are positive and the middle-aged tentative; only the old have flair.

21. In the nineteenth century men lost their fear of God and acquired a fear of microbes.

22. It is better to employ a doubtful remedy than to condemn the patient to a certain death.

23. It is not what disease the patient has but which patient has the disease.

24. Many physicians would prefer passing a small kidney stone to presenting a paper.

25. Medical statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is interesting but what they conceal is vital.

26. My friend was sick: I attended him. He died; I dissected him.

27. Never let the sun set or rise on a small bowel obstruction.

28. No woman wants an abortion. Either she wants a child or she wishes to avoid pregnancy.

29. Palliative care should not be associated exclusively with terminal care. Many patients need it early in the course of their disease.

30. Patients and their families will forgive you for wrong diagnoses, but will rarely forgive you for wrong prognoses; the older you grow in medicine, the more chary you get about offering iron clad prognoses, good or bad.

31. Physicians and politicians resemble one another in this respect, that some defend the constitution and others destroy it.

32. Physicians are rather like undescended testicles, they are difficult to locate and when they are found, they are pretty ineffective.

33. Poverty is a virtue greatly exaggerated by physicians no longer forced to practise it.

34. Removing the teeth will cure something, including the foolish belief that removing the teeth will cure everything.

35. Rheumatic fever licks at the joints, but bites at the heart.

36. Sepsis is an insult to a surgeon.

37. Surgeons get long lives and short memories.

38. The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman.

39. The comforting, if spurious, precision of laboratory results has the same appeal as the lifebelt to the weak swimmer.

40. The new definition of psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd.

41. The psychiatrist is the obstetrician of the mind.

42. There is no short cut from chemical laboratory to clinic, except one that passes too close to the morgue.

43. The spine is a series of bones running down your back. You sit on one end of it and your head sits on the other.

44. The wound is granulating well, the matter formed is diminishing in quantity and is laudable. But the wound is still deep and must be dressed from the bottom to ensure sound healing.

45. Today’s facts are tomorrow’s fallacies.

46. You shall not eat or drink in the company of other people but with lepers alone, and you shall know that when you shall have died you will not be buried in the church.

Thou to whom the sick and dying
Ever came, nor came in vain,
With thy healing hands replying
To their wearied cry of pain.

’Tis better than riches
To scratch when it itches

A physician is someone who knows everything and does nothing.
A surgeon is someone who does everything and knows nothing.
A psychiatrist is someone who knows nothing and does nothing.
A pathologist is someone who knows everything and does everything too late.

Dr Bell fell down the well
And broke his collar bone
Doctors should attend the sick
And leave the well alone

Get up at 5, have lunch at 9,
Supper at 5, retire at 9,
And you will live to 99.

Here lies one who for medicines would not give
A little gold, and so his life he lost;
I fancy now he’d wish again to live,
Could he but guess how much his funeral cost.

Source: Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations

Along with pianists and violinists, guitarists are one of the most vulnerable musicians to hand injuries. Guitarists frequently develop repetitive strain injury and tendonitis (tendinitis/tendinitides) that may coexist with compression nerve syndromes because of non functional posture and positioning of the upper extremities during long-term practice and performance. Musicians aren’t generally known for their athletic prowess, but it is physical exertion all the same.

Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) (also known as overuse injury) is an injury of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems that may be caused by repetitive tasks, forceful exertions, vibrations, mechanical compression (pressing against hard surfaces), or sustained or awkward positions. Here is the list of 5 most common guitar related hand injuries.

1. Nerve compression syndromes:

A. Carpal tunnel syndrome:
Carpal tunnel syndrome very often occurs in stringed guitarists and other stringed instrument musicians who use to play with their wrists in excessive flexion. The medical reason behind this injury is the compression of median nerve in carpal tunnel in the wrist leading to complaints like tingling, pain, numbness or discomfort in the lateral 3 and 1/2 fingers.
Further Reading: To understand more about carpal tunnel syndrome

B. Cubital tunnel syndrome:
This syndrome is caused due to ulanr nerve entrapment as the nerve passes through the anatomical structure called cubital tunnel in the elbow region and will usually only involve the fingers with ulnar nerve supply i.e. medial 1 and 1/2 fingers (ring and pinky). This is the same nerve that causes the tingling sensation when you hit in elbow. It frequently affects your fretting fingers (i.e, in left hand for right handed guitarists and vice versa). Since, both carpal tunnel syndrome and cubital tunnel syndrome are nerve compression syndromes, they involve common complaints along the region of nerve supply.

However, cubital tunnel syndrome is not as common as carpal tunnel syndrome.

2. Tendonitis:
Tendonitis/Tendinits refers to the inflammation of tendons and guitarists commonly get it in their wrists leading to tightness of muscle, connective tissue constriction and pain. This is called wrist tendonitis and it is caused due to friction and strain produced due to overuse of the wrist muscles. If you get it due to long hours and bad posture during guitar practice, you may call it guitar tendonitis.

3. Tennis elbow:
Tennis elbow, also known as lateral epicondylitis, is an inflammatory process located in the outside part of the elbow (the thumb side of the elbow). The main symptoms include pain on the outside edge of the elbow, pain when gripping especially while extending the hand at the wrist. In guitarists, the main cause leading to this injury is over-practicing and putting extra pressure on fret board than necessary.

4. Focal dystonia:
Focal or functional dystoniae are painless, stereotypic, localized movements encountered in some professional groups of patients that perform many times per minute the same tasks. Several fingers on a musician’s hand just curl up and stop responding. The management of patients with focal dystoniae is challenging.

5. Arthritis
Arthritis is the wear and tear of joints, for guitarists this could be frequently in the hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder. It usually occur at the carpometacarpal joint of the thumb and may lead to instability. The most common case is osteoarthritis where joints get worn down through overuse and begin grinding against each other.

How to prevent guitar related injuries?

Most of the times its already too late when you realize that playing guitar can cause injuries and it can be prevented easily.

1. Warm and stretch your fingers for some time with easier stretches and motions before playing complicated and swift ones. During winters you can try warming up your arms and hands with a warm water soak or shower.
2. Don’t hang your guitar too low so that you need to flex your wrist more. Metal guitarists may look and encourage you but this type of playing style encourages injuries.
3. Avoid practicing and performing for lengthy period of time and take breaks in between.
4. Always try and keep your wrist as straight as comfortably possible.
5. Icing 20-30 minutes after prolonged effort will reduce inflammation and reduce potential damage.
6. You can use ergonomic guitar and pick
7. If you experience pain, swelling, or weakness then stop playing and seek advice from doctor.
8. Taking plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration
9. Getting ample sleep

Treatment:

Hand and upper extremity disorders of the musicians should not be treated surgically and guitarists are no exception. Surgery should always be considered a last resort. Treatment may involve:

1. Physical therapy
2. Psychological support
3. Rest
4. Use of braces
5. Use of medicines, ice, vitamis, essential fatty acids, etc.
6. Use of muscle gel or deep heat

Recently, a research has defined love as a disease characterized by abnormal heart rhythms, sweating, impaired brain function, incoherent speech patterns and loss of sleep. Here the poet has used his power of imagination to express his view/experience on love in the form of a poetry. This poetry constructed using medical terms uses characteristics of neoplasm (cancer) to characterize love.

Your love is a malignant tumor
Infiltrating my heart
Metastasizing to my soul
Killing me slowly
My mind’s taking da toll.

You encapsulate me
Circumscribe my imagination
Your memories packed inside
I won’t let any herniation.

Aaah..this tachycardia
And this impulse to love you
Coming from basal ganglia.

I wanna be your Homer-Wright rossette
You are my central fibrillar space
Just remember me when you need me
I’ll b there with glioblastoma’s pace.

Oh my Belladona
If im a life, then you are my water
Just say “yes” to me baby
I’ll stick to you whole life like Piamater.

By Prayush Aryal
KIST Medical College
Batch 2nd

• Laughter relaxes the whole body: Relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.
• Laughter boosts the immune system: Decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies.
• Laughter triggers the release of endorphins: Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.
• Laughter protects the heart: Improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow.

Slash My Wrists Or Blow My Brains Out?

Patient: I can’t decide whether to slash my wrists, or blow my brains out.
Psychiatrist: You have difficulty making decisions.

Difference between hematologist and urologist

What is the difference between a hematologist and a urologist?
A hematologist pricks your finger.

Doctor’s logic

When the hospital Board of Directors asked a panel of doctors to vote on adding a new wing to their hospital:

1. Allergists voted to scratch it
2. Dermatologists advised no rash moves.
3. Gastroenterologists had a gut feeling about it
4. Neurologists thought the administration had a lot of nerve
5. Obstetricians stated they were all laboring under a misconception
6. Ophthalmologists considered the idea short-sighted
7. Pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body,”
8. Pediatricians said, “Grow up!”
9. Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness
10. Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing
11. Radiologists could see right through it
12. Plastic surgeons said, “This puts a whole new face on the matter”
13. Urologists felt the scheme wouldn’t hold water
14. Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas
15. Cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no
16. Proctologists left the decision up to some bum

It’s a simple operation

A man was wheeling himself frantically down the hall of the hospital in his wheelchair, just before his operation.

• Nurse: What’s the matter?
• Patient: I heard the nurse say, “It’s a very simple operation. Don’t worry, I’m sure it will be all right.”
• Nurse: She was just trying to comfort you, what’s so frightening about that?
• Patient: She wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to the doctor!

Anesthesiologist’s Bill

Mariana received a bill from the hospital for her recent surgery, and was astonished to see a $1500 fee for the anesthesiologist. She called his office to demand an explanation.

• Mariana: Is this some kind of mistake?
• Doctor: No, not at all.
• Mariana: Well, that’s awfully costly for knocking someone out.
• Doctor: Not at all. I knock you out for free. The 1500 $ is for bringing you back around.

Difference between neurotic and psychotic

• A psychotic thinks that 2 + 2 = 5
• A neurotic knows the answer is 4, but it worries him

Can I play the piano once these are off ?

A doctor has come to see one of his patients in a hospital. The patient has had major surgery to both of his hands.

• Patient: (excitedly) Will I be able to play the piano when these bandages come off?
• Doctor: I don’t see why not
• Man: That’s funny. I wasn’t able to play it before.

10 things you don’t want to hear during a surgery

1. Has anyone seen my watch?
2. Come back with that! Bad Dog!
3. Wait a minute, if this is his spleen, then what’s that?
4. What do you mean he wasn’t in for a sex change!
5. Damn, there go the lights again…
6. Everybody stand back! I lost my contact lens!
7. What do you mean, he’s not insured?
8. Let’s hurry, I don’t want to miss “Bay Watch”
9. What do you mean “You want a divorce”!
10. FIRE! FIRE! Everyone get out!

Love of Romeo and Juliet in Mental Hospital

Romeo and Juliet were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool. Romeo suddenly jumped into the deep end and sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Juliet promptly jumped in, swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Juliet’s heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.

She went to tell Juliet the news:

• Nurse: Juliet, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love. I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.
• Juliet: What is the bad news?
• Nurse: Romeo hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he’s dead.
• Juliet: He didn’t hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?

Is it mine?

• Question: What did the blonde ask her doctor when he told her she was pregnant?
• Answer: ‘Is it mine?’