Yes, I was right...

...when I decided not to be a doctor (of the medical kind).

Now, you will be asking why this sudden bout of patting-myself-on-the-back? The reason was revealed to me in my class last week. In the neurobiology class, we had a lecture about the neural imaging techniques. More of medical stuff than engineering stuff than I care, but all in all it was good lecture. Actual images of tumors, their diagnosis etc. was helpful in understanding the neural anatomy.

And, at the end of lecture, the professor suddenly brings out a case to test our understanding. Till then, he had confined the images to MRI, CT scans etc, but at the last minute, he shows the actual photo of the patient. The case was: a 9 year old girl, running around with knitting needle stumbled and the needle pierced her just above the right eye and went about 2 inches inside. Luckily it missed the eyeball and vital blood vessels. But the picture was enough to show me that I did a service to mankind when I decided to stay away from medical profession.

The professor (he was the doctor on the case) had readied an OR for the girl, and one more for treating the trauma to the father when the mother got there (the girl was with the father when the accident happened). If I had been the doctor on the case, I had have to send for 2 more doctors, one to treat the girl, the other to revive me from shock.




On a happier note, we have to use a software called Sylvius, which is kind of brain atlas on the computer. And it has a ipod version which I have downloaded too. Looks like my ipod is going to be as useful as my laptop in my studies.