Tag: P Ravi Shankar
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An uneasy relationship
P. Ravi ShankarKuala Lumpur, Malaysia My paternal grandmother lived for nearly ninety-three years. She was a strong woman who faced life with courage and dignity. She developed some medical conditions later in life but was active, could carry out her activities of daily living, and lived a very disciplined life. Like many others in India,…
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Movie review: Miss Evers’ Boys
P. Ravi ShankarKuala Lumpur, Malaysia The Tuskegee Syphilis study was a dark chapter in United States history. In 1932, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) began to study the natural history of progression of syphilis. The study was originally called the “Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the negro male” and is now referred…
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The boys who did not come back from the brink
Ravi ShankarLalitpur, Nepal Lying unconscious on the stone floor, the 14-year-old boy bled profusely from a huge slash across his chest. Ram laughed, the sound resembling the screeching gears of a heavily loaded truck groaning slowly uphill. I frantically tried to staunch the flow of blood with towels and clothes—Ram’s maniacal laughter an incongruous accompaniment—as…
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The patient on the brink
Ravi ShankarNepal The St. Xavier’s hospital in the village of Ellakkal is in a magnificent location nestled in the Western Ghats of the Idukki district in the Southern Indian state of Kerala. The Ghats are a series of hills that reach about 2,000 meters high and run parallel to India’s west coast around 75 kilometers…
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The influence of the internet on medical student learning: A personal perspective
P. Ravi ShankarOranjestad, Aruba The Medical College sprawls across a rocky hillside at Mulangunnathukavu (a real mouthful of a name) in a village some twelve kilometers from the town of Thrissur in central Kerala. It is a converted tuberculosis sanatorium, its various departments and administrative buildings housed in modified buildings. The kingdom of Cochin in…
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The humanities in a traditional medical school
P. Ravi ShankarAruba, Kingdom of the Netherlands Having been involved with medical humanities for over eight years in medical schools in Nepal and Aruba, I began to think about my own medical education in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The term medical humanities was not in vogue in India during those days, and only…
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The man who could not stop smoking!
Ravi ShankarAruba, Kingdom of the Netherlands He was dark and swarthy, around five foot four. His posture was slightly stooped and the muscles of his upper arm and torso were becoming flabby. His hair was unkempt and he had stubble on his face and neck. He was around thirty-five but looked older and had streaks…
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The doctor and the doll
Ravi ShankarAruba, Kingdom of the Netherlands Norman Rockwell, one of the most famous American artists of the twentieth century, depicted ordinary American life from an optimistic perspective. He once stated that he did not portray the ugly and the sordid, but portrayed life as he would like it to be. One of his paintings, Doctor…
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My grandmother
Ravi ShankarOranjestad, Aruba The room was simple. A wooden bed on one side, a sofa for visitors on the other. Two unadorned wooden doors faced each other, allowing some cross ventilation. Both opened into long dark and cool corridors as was common in old houses in Kerala. I had often enquired as to why houses…