The art of prognostication

One night in the ICU, I told two loving sisters to a 43 year old sickly cancer patient that their little sister was doing well. As the patient’s admitting doctor, the sisters were banking their hopes on me. They were trying to ask me probing questions, but fumbling. Then one of the sisters managed to spew out her […]

Healthcare’s performance report: Virginia

That was Virginia’s second visit to the hospital in the ten days of the new year. It also ended up being the last. Virginia was a patient we all knew. She came to the hospital frequently. The aphorism of our intern year was, if you had not taken care of Virginia once, you were not […]

The challenges of tobacco control

The WHO FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) has been trying to regulate tobacco production the world over by restricting the use of land available for tobacco farming. The reasoning behind this is  two-fold: first tobacco has been singled out as the greatest preventable cause of death. Second the use of scarce farmland, especially in […]

The Adoption of EMR

It is no news a lot of doctors like to stick up a rather snotty nose to EMR, despite all the rage in town. The defenders of the EMR tend to label such doctors as archetypal Luddites, sticking to their archaic ways and unbecoming of change and the new times. But as is usually the […]

Ensuring universal health care around the himalayas

Two unique experiments in health care are being orchestrated on either sides of the Himalayas. Both China and India are grappling with the ideals of universal health care(UHC): trying to provide equitable and accessible healthcare to the entirety of its populace, an idea that has been up for talks here in Nepal as well for […]

Pirates of the healthcare industry

The New York Times recently did an expose on hospital overbilling by a group of cardiologists at some hospitals owned by the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). Immediately after a few days, a rather gloating article about how HCA had become the poster boy of Wall Street with its double digit growth strategy appeared. If the […]

I don’t know what’s wrong with you lady

I think my patient hates me! Okay I will admit I am sure she hates me. If it’s any consolation, she hates all her doctors at the hospital. Up until this morning I’d been thinking she hated me a little less than everybody else, by the afternoon I managed to gravitate right to the top […]

3 decades of AIDS

What a span of 30 years can do. Fear can ferment; havoc can be wrecked. For the brave, such fears can be confronted, courage can be mustered; challenges vanquished, the sweet taste of victory savoured. A generation can be born and come of age. Epochs can be defined. All in a matters of 30 years. […]

Primary care’s woes: It’s in the way you see

Primary care is ever the cinderella-esque tragedy. Ever so maligned, ever engulfed in misery and never really the belle of the ball like she rightfully deserves to be. There may be reasons galore to this. Not least of which is the way primary care work is perceived in this country. Let me illustrate. The primary care […]

Free health care requires infrastructure development

In an attempt to ensure universal healthcare for its people, Nepal started with free health care to a select group of people  in the mid 2000s. The plan met much scepticism, especially from healthcare providers,  when it started out. Five years down the line, it has its fair share of believers. The moral imperative to ensure healthcare to people […]