THE WORLD THROUGH HIS EYES..

THE WORLD THROUGH HIS EYES

Medical internship is at once the most exciting and yet the most frustrating thing in the life of a young doctor- exciting, because there is this positive feeling of already having become a doctor and frustrating, because it is far from rewarding. But here comes the catch- it’s not a job, it’s internship! There are days when just a simple dressing helps heal a patient’s wound and the intern feels satisfied. However, there are testing times as well when you want to do so much more and find yourself helpless since there are not many opportunities available as you are the junior most in the hierarchy of medical practitioners.
One of the most worthwhile experiences of internship is the peripheral posting which gives you an opportunity for field work and provides a reason to be of service to the community. While the seniors are too busy in the hospitals, it’s the interns and the junior resident doctors who are entrusted the job of conducting camps and identifying patients in need of medical care!
As a part of my internship rotation in ophthalmology, I got an opportunity to be a part of a health check up camp this October. A school was selected in one of the nearby villages and my job was to test for visual acuity- or to assess if any child had any refractive errors and ask him/her to come to our hospital for follow up if so needed. We were provided with an English version of Snellen’s chart(the one ophthalmologists use for testing vision by asking you to read out what is written on the chart which is usually placed at a distance of 6 metres. It consists of a sequence of letters or numbers or figures depending on the patient’s intellectual level and language preferences). The chart worked quite well for the first 4 days. But on the fifth day, something much unexpected happened. To my utter surprise, the school which had been selected for the fifth day was a special school- a school for the differently abled.
An autustic kid came up and my friend and I had to assess his vision. Since we only had the letter based Snellen's chart (that too an English one!), we couldn't diagnose if he had any refractive errors. Numbers and letters didn't make much sense to him.
I felt irritated since the management team delegated with the work of conducting such camps could have been more painstaking in their approach and could have at least informed us what sort of a school it was going to be so that we could have brought some other charts and equipments which might have helped us a bit in assessing these kids’ visual acuity.
Unsure of what we should do, my friend and I however decided to continue with the task at hand using a bit of ‘jugaad’. We devised a makeshift Snellen’s chart with circles of varying sizes instead of letters and asked them to count the number of circles. It must be said that it was a totally ‘kaam-chalau’ technique. We were even able to diagnose a few kids with refractive errors with this technique. For the majority though, even figures made no sense or rather their imaginations were all too powerful to just laugh at our ‘jugaad’.
As we were returning, my mind went back to that autistic kid-
What use would it be to diagnose him with a refractive error- just because he can't read what we, the so-called ‘normal’ beings read? Yes, as a doctor, I can change his vision but not his imagination. He sees the numbers differently. He sees the world differently. And, guess what? It's so much better.
In his world, there is no discrimination whatsoever.
In his world, there are no soldiers and no terrorists..
In his world, India and Pakistan don't exist let alone fight.
 In his world there is only happiness and no sorrow, no worries for what is going to happen tomorrow. Wasn’t it how we were supposed to live?
 The world through his eyes is actually normal and beautiful and yet we have labeled him abnormal.
He sees the world differently...
And maybe that's what we envy..
If only we all could see the world though his eyes, it would be a better place..
Through his eyes, maybe we all suffer from refractive errors and it's high time we correct it.

-  Dr. Devashish Palkar