confession and forgiveness

stumbled upon an interesting article on the net the other day.
Where’s the forgiveness? at getreligion.org made for excellent reading. here's the two most significant lines:

When I confess my sins to my pastor, he forgives me in Christ’s stead. Other churches have variations on this, but in the whole “confession and absolution” structure, the emphasis is on forgiveness.

and

In traditional churches, the practice of private confession and absolution reminds the penitent how sin separates the believer from God and how merciful God is to forgive us — it isn’t supposed to make us feel better about our sin.

my personal experience with confession has been wonderful.

when i commit a sin and someone says to me "it's ok", they don't really mean my actions were correct, they mean i should not loose heart

the whole point of confession is that we recognise what we've done and ask pardon.

and in a valid, sacramental confession, one can be sure of forgiveness as instituted by jesus christ himself (gospel of st. john, 20:22-23)

sure, talking about one's mistakes helps, because we feel bad about our mistakes and in general, it helps to talk about anything that we feel bad about. but that's not the whole point of confession. neither is it the main point.

the main thing is forgiveness, and the return to a state of grace and communion with god

and these are the most wonderful words i've ever heard:

GOD THE FATHER OF MERCIES,

THROUGH THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF HIS SON,

HAS RECONCILED THE WORLD TO HIMSELF,

AND SENT THE HOLY SPIRIT AMONG US

FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

THROUGH THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH,

MAY GOD GIVE YOU PARDON AND PEACE,

I ABSOLVE YOU OF YOUR SINS,

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER,

AND OF THE SON,

AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

GO IN PEACE.

heartless doctor?

ever since the resus episode, been wondering if i've become too heartless.
funny, because some time ago, i wouldn't even have thought about it.
i guess this reflective mood is coming about because this resus has come after a long gap.
time was, in medicine wards, when we used to be resuscitating day in and day out.
i even started my internship with a resus.
and we all know the success rate for resus is quite low, more so considering most of the patients i crossed by were extremely ill to begin with, when a sudden new problem hits them. as the expression goes around here "cooked and booked cases".
is that crude?
i guess it is.
but tell me, how does one survive in an atmosphere where people die every day?
one does not have the time to sit and reflect and let the emotions out. one has to get to the next patient and do whatever they need, whether it is a blood test, any other investigation, or a first dose of antibiotic, etc. if one stops to reflect on every death, the work will never get done.
i remember days when people used to arrest in rapid succession. what do you do? just try and resuscitate as fast as you can. you can't stop to think.
what else does one do to survive in such a morbid environment?
one of the most important things, i think, was humour.
we managed to find humour even in such surroundings because if you didn't laugh at something, the whole place would soon get to you, you would not be able to function.
we could laugh at the absolute nonsense someone wrote on a chart because they were so sleepy they could not keep their eyelids apart or their head up;
we could laugh at the outrageous diagnosis or treatment suggestions of colleagues;
we could laugh when someone fell asleep on their h.o.d's shoulder while the h.o.d. was operating and they were retracting
we could laugh at the terribly explicit description the patient gave of their stools
we could mimic a patient's accent
we could laugh at all this and so much more
we could and we did
because it was the only way to keep going.

first cardiac arrest bleep

today was my first day carrying the cart (cardiac arrest resuscitation team) pager.
usually, a whole week goes by with nary a bleep, because the mortality in surgical units is much less than in medical units and cart, at least here, is only for the surgical units. the medical wards handle their own arrests.
and what i feared came true. was sleeping when the bleep came, actually was just waking up.
obviously, grossly inadequately dressed to go anywhere.
so i hurried into my clothes, and in the hurry-worry, forget to look carefully at the pager.
they had written the location as usual, but i saw only the phone number. so wasted precious seconds calling them up and finding out where they were.
anyway, the team also includes people from the i.c.u., so they're right below the surgical wards and reach immediately.
they'd already started resuscitation when i reached. thankfully, we performed well i think.
obviously wasn't my first resus. you can't go through a whole year of internship here without seeing more deaths than you can keep track of.
this guy had metastatic high-grade sarcoma and had just been admitted for pain-control. the surgical guys said they didn't expect him to die so soon, so they did not put a dnr (do not resuscitate) order on the chart.
interestingly, we resus'ed for about 15 minutes and throughout, whenever we checked, there was no pulse. but once we decided to stop and checked one last time, we found he had a pulse!
i wanted to ventilate him because he was at least pumping blood now, but the surgery guys were right. they were not going to do anything, and would not be putting him on supports anyway. they would just explain to the relatives and advise that it would be less traumatic for all concerned if the patient was taken home. he never did have a hope anyway, the cancer was too widespread.
once that was decided, we just took off our gloves, and left.
it's strange. having so many deaths happen in your watch in internship kinda kills you off inside too.
well, i don't mean the heartless, soul-less doctor thing that everyone talks about.
but you get so clinical about these things
nothing elicits a flicker of feeling or a second thought anymore.
maybe I'll post later on how this emotion-less thing works
bye

got off early today

today was a good day for me.
as you may not know, i'm doing my post-graduation in anaesthesia.
was in urology theatre today
got to do an lma, a caudal block, 4 spinals, and my first epidural!!!!!!!!!!!
(clap, clap, clap)
plus, got off at 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the coming week is gonna be interesting.
will be carrying the cardiac arrest pager (bleep).
was wondering, how does one respond if one is in the loo? does one even take the pager to the loo? (well, i suppose you do if it's a cardiac arrest bleep)

on other areas, got up early today, but slept off again as it was too hot and i was too sleepy.
the top floor is not a good idea at all.
plus, did not go for mass in the morning.
did read the bible though.
it's really tough to maintain spirituality (is that the right word for it?) for any length of time for me. i feel very spiritually lax and give up too easily.
gotta keep it up this time (like i say everytime)

and, i gotta study, don't forget.

am happy

met my best friend yesterday after a week. he'd gone home and just returned.
he said he was extremely envious of me, know why?
because i'm happy right now
extremely happy
when one starts studying towards a career, or working, one often wonders if one is on the right track, etc.
i've had my share of doubts
but right now, i'm so happy. i'm really enjoying my work, and there's so much to learn and do
people told me i'm a dolt for choosing this subject for my post-grad
they said it was a waste of brain power (thanks for the under-handed compliment, guys; i remember one person saying, "you could do so much more!")
they said it was something one did when they did not get any other stream, or when one did not want to work much, etc, etc etc ad infinitum supra nauseum
but what can i do, this is what i wanted,
this is what i liked
and by the grace of god almighty, right now, it seems to be clicking
hope my friend gets that way too, and soon.
it's not easy to see him feeling down. he's the one who lifts everyone else's spirits, keeps everyone laughing, etc
am stuck now, and wondering, is there a polite way to end a post or.....
i guess it's my space to do what i want, right?

my duty day went well

was on duty on wednesday
was doing cases on the trot from 7.30 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. - 24 busy hours, but extremely satisfying. did 7 spinals in one night, and got them all. even put an arterial line and a brachial central line. and had an extremely nice second call
incidentally, we both have the same name (not telling you!)
and to add to the fun, we spent most of the day with a surgeon of the same name! was interesting having three heads turn when someone called out for one of us

ahem....

i'm not sure why i'm doing this, this whole setting-up-a-blog business. just have wanted to do it for a long time. let's see how it turns out.