On Monday the LA Times ran an insightful story [free reg. required] on what happens when you pretend to be an American all day:

Every Saturday morning Dr. S. Kalyanasundaram knows whom to expect at the psychiatric clinic he runs at Shanthi nursing home in Jayanagar, Bangalore. It’s the technology crowd, and their complaints tend to be of a similar nature: stress, panic attacks, depression, relationship troubles, alcoholism and eating disorders.

Between 20 and 33 years old and keen to hide their symptoms from employers and families, the patients have significantly increased Kalyanasundaram’s workload.

“They work somewhere between a 10- and a 14-hour day, which, in my view, is just not healthy. They have no time for their partners and children, even more so if both partners go out to work. But ask them why they work so hard and they say it is absolutely necessary because someone is always waiting to take their job. Their way of coping is to hit the pub.”

According to a report in the Indian Express newspaper, one in 15 people seeking counseling from a doctor in Chennai, India, works either in software or at a call center…

…”The strain of pretending to be ‘Bob’ or ‘Susan’ on the phone for weeks on end and keeping up with ‘Eastenders’ [a British television soap opera] and baseball can lead to questions of identity,”…

Yeah, I sort of saw this coming. As a former telemarketer I know full well the depression that can clutch at you when dealing with rude people all day. The other interesting issue the Times article looks at is what happens when the kids start making more money than the parents. The “as long as you live in my house” leverage just doesn’t cut it. “Mom, I’ll be at Moe’s.”

India’s work patterns also are testing traditionally close family structures. Gouhari said: “Children are earning vastly more than their parents ever did and the new disposable income is leading to a burgeoning pub culture which is causing a lot of family tension.”

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Thanks to stupid attitudes towards gay people, an apparent allergy to condoms, prostitution, intravenous drug use and little if any testing, “there will undoubtedly be an explosion of Aids” in Asia, sayeth the UN AIDS Director, Peter Piot.

The UN estimates 8.2m people in Asia have HIV, of whom 5.1m are in India.

The risk of the disease spreading further in the region was now higher than ever, Mr Piot told a conference in the Japanese city of Kobe.

5.1 million, eh? I’m sure it’s a bit more than THAT. I hardly think that they managed to count everyone, or that people are happily volunteering such info…and that’s assuming they’re even AWARE of what they bear.

If concrete steps are taken now, the effect on future rates of infection could be dramatic:

Twelve million extra people could be infected in Asia within the next five years – an increase of 150% – he said.

But, “with major political will”, this could be reduced to six million.

I think a goal such as this deserves major everything, political will included. Education must be part of the solution– the stigma attached to being HIV+ means that the infected avoid getting treated and are in denial about their dire situation. Case in point:

The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the problem for Asia is that many people think Aids is not a big issue there.

No, it’s definitely not a big issue. Denial may not be in Egypt, after all… Continue reading →

The shiznit rarely gets weirder than this –

Doctors in Bangladesh say they have removed a long-dead foetus from the abdomen of a teenage boy who was complaining of stomach pains. They said the foetus would have become the boy’s twin had it grown normally in their mother’s womb. They said it was a case of an extremely rare condition where two foetuses are conceived as conjoined twins but one absorbs the other. …”Apart from the head, all other limbs of the baby were developed.”

Ewww. Just plain ewww. The villagers reacted as villagers in da homeland usually do – not content to wait for the Enquirer to put its alien autopsy spin on the story, they flocked to see it first hand –

Hundreds of curious locals flocked to the hospital on hearing a rumour that a boy had given birth to a baby.

Kuato Lives! Continue reading →

The United States and the UK always seem to be trading the hottest new trends. Could the following be one of them? The Telegraph reports:

The traditional image of the British family doctor as a serious, besuited white middle-aged man is out of date. As far as patients are concerned, the ‘perfect’ general practitioner is his polar opposite: young, female and Asian.

A study of hundreds of patients, which asked them to rate doctors on a scale of one to five for perceived expertise, put women doctors – both white and Asian – first in almost all categories, while white, male doctors over the age of 50 languished near the bottom.

Female doctors under the age of 35 were judged to have a preferable personal manner, superior technical skills and superior powers of description.

Patients also stated that they felt more at ease with young, female doctors giving physical examinations, were more likely to have faith in their diagnoses, and were more likely to follow their medical advice and prescribed treatment.

See, I just don’t know about this trend for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about young female Asian doctors in general, I just think I’d be too embarrassed though. Plus I am strange when it comes to finding the right doctor. When I lived in Houston, after weeks of searching for a general practitioner, I ended up selecting a doctor with the same first and last name as me (not an easy task) except his last name ended in a “y” instead of an “i.” Given that fact, I found it strange that the receptionist asked if we were related.

“It could be a ‘halo’ effect: if somebody likes the look of one aspect of you, such as your looks, they will rate you highly across other areas too.”

The study, called “What’s In a Face” and to be published in a scientific journal called Patient Evaluation and Control, gave white male doctors over the age of 50 an average score of 40 out of 60. Young, white female doctors got 44 while young, Asian female doctors received 47.

Dr Rupal Shah, 31, from Pimlico in London, was taken aback to learn that she fitted the ”perfect” GP’s profile.

“How strange! I had always imagined that an older white male had the most authority. It’s very nice to hear, because I have sometimes felt that people look at me and think: ‘Gosh, she’s a bit young. Does she really know what she’s talking about?'”

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Unless you’re a physician who moonlights in a heavy metal band, the nickname “Dr. Death” should tell you that you’re doing a poor job of practicing medicine. Dr. Jayant Patel, a surgeon in the Australian state of Queensland, is not in a heavy metal band:

A doctor turned off a woman’s life support ventilator in an Australian hospital because the director of surgery, dubbed "Dr Death," wanted her bed to operate on another patient, an inquiry has heard. The government-sanctioned inquiry in the Australian state of Queensland is examining the deaths of 87 patients treated by Indian-trained Dr Jayant Patel. [Reuters/Yahoo!]

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This one should be a no-brainer — don’t ever bring your prostitute home to meet your wife:

Doctors in Uttar Pradesh, India, have reattached a man’s penis after it was cut off by his wife. His wife said she was fed up with his womanising. Things came to a head when he brought a prostitute home. [Medical News Today]

Sure, the concept of a detachable penis sounds great in theory, but once you get one, you can’t wait to get it reattached:

His penis was reattached by a team of doctors, led by Dr. A Singh. According to doctor Singh, we will have to wait and see whether the man will ever be able to have sex again. [Medical News Today]

Mentioned briefly in an earlier post.

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