Many moons ago, I was doing my first-year house post in renowned Hospital, as a junior resident house surgeon in the OB/GYN Dept. It is a busy public hospital in Mumbai, and we managed over 7000 births every year. Since we were a renowned teaching hospital, plenty of serious patients were referred to us for emergency treatment. Because there was so much work, we were always sleep deprived, but this was considered to be par for the course.
Our seniors felt that we had to be taught how to keep midnight vigils – a traditional occupational hazard for obstetricians. We got to manage lots of complications during labour, and this hands-on experience was considered to be invaluable. The teaching program was very unstructured, and we followed the traditional “ see on, do one, teach on e” approach. During night hours, the senior staff members ( lecturers and professors ) in the unit were never in…
