physicals

New job. Went for the mandatory health check up today. Turned out quite well actually. blood pressure was around 100/60 though pulse was 100/min [ cant boast of being an athlete just yet]. No handle and cough thank god. Was excused from the ppd, so got out with a single prick. Altogether not too bad.

On rumination I realized that it could have been much worse. Like the time in Pune when the new surgery lecturers came in for their physicals. Ah that’s an ugly story. Lemme start at the beginning.

So Dr Gandhage was the HOD of the radiology department at Sassoon hospitals where I had joined in to be the new doormat. The department was facing an acute crisis in that there were not enough ultrasound machines functional [this happens every 2 months]. So the Wise Dr Gandhage had brought out of retirement his favorite 1970's [maybe 1980's] ultrasound, which had a mechanical probe attached.
The problem was the lower half of the image on the monitor usually remained uninterpretable so the all-seeing sonographer had to gauge what lay in the depths depending on what he saw above. Obviously every one thought that he was being an idiot. He felt it and decided he had to reveal just how things could be done.

The clinic where this machine was so far out from the department that on a usual day no one except the guys at the clinic knew what happened there [basically me and a lecturer]. So patients were being kicked around left right and center, till they either ran away, got their ultrasounds done on the last sensible machine in the department or left with a report that was a figment of the sonographers vivid imagination.

But on that fateful day Dr Gandhage paraded into the place and everything was in edge. Things were smooth until these 2 guys came in. They had both just successfully cleared their postgraduate surgery exams and were about to join back as lecturers. For some obscure reason they needed an ultrasound abdomen and scrotum as a part of their physical [maharashtra requirements I'm sure]. Any normal human being would probably have just done an ultrasound abdomen and let them go. I mean it’s anyway meaningless to do an ultrasound abdomen as a routine part of a physical leave alone the ultrasound scrotum. That's what these guys expected anyways.

But Dr Gandhage was at his pedantic best. He not only made them strip but played around with their balls for as long as he could. It was awful. The worst was when one of them made eye contact. I felt really sad at their humiliation. So the guys got their signature and the rest of the day went of well.

Reminds me of the time after our med school physical when we heard that one of us had a serious varicocele. So 3 years later the guy got it corrected. The next day the bulletin board read ' Now ladies I'm ready for some action'.