Medicine man

Studying in IIT, you always start off with an air of invincibleness, a feeling that you know everything, a feeling which reduces rapidly with time, faster than a negative exponential function. After 8 months in here you are so pleased to find so many things that you do not know, and more so things which you have no intention of knowing.
Amongst all this, the world of medicine which intrigues me the most. We get sick and then we are helpless, most of us having no idea what exactly is going on. However as they say (please do not ask me about the "they" ) experience is a wonderful teacher. So after 3 yrs in a hostel I have found so many professional quacks walking around, including yours truly.
After all the world of medicine is not so complicated. Go to a druggists shop and then you will understand that. You will find people rattling off the names of medicines, their effects, side effects and dose , mode of usage as if it were the latest world cup match results. Curiously none of them hold an MBBS degree. Come on , to think of it its all so simple.....
if you have fever - pop in a calpol
shitting more than usual - metranidazole
shitting too much with pain in stomach - Norflox TZ
indigestion - diegene/ gelusil
other forms of pain - dispirin
more pain - buscopan
flowing nose - cetzine
throat congestion - ampicillin/ dox .... And a whole lot
cough - cough syrup (here the chemist can help you)

See its all so simple. Some of the above quack therapy and you are fit to work the next morning. Off Course there comes a lot of times when all of the above fail miserably then you have to go and meet a guy not only with a MBBS degree , but with a host of other appendages as well. Sometimes I envy these medicine men, they can add so many things at the back of their name , which amplifies the enormous respect they already command. The last time I went to see a doctor he was something like "Dr. So and so ; MBBS(Cal), MD(Cal) FRCS(Edin), MRCP (Lond)........... " (Pardon me if these short forms are inaccurate, I have no idea what they mean ).
I had gone to him complaining of stomach pains , which could not be cured by my quack therapy.
He had a good look at my stomach , pressed it in a hell lot of places and asked whether that region was paining or not. Concluding his diagnosis he remarked " appendicitis, move into surgery " !!!!
Ahem .. No way !!! No surgery for me , I am scared at the sight of needles and scalpel. So move to a man of medicine , who pokes in some more and gives me some pills to pop down every morning and afternoon after meals. He suggests ultrasonography for a conclusive diagnosis.
Move over to a third medicine man , and this time he uses a short stick to poke me , and poke me hard from every possible angle in the right side lower abdomen. He even pokes me on the left side to determine whether I was feeling different kinds of pain on the different sides.
Hell with all the poking I had in 1 week , even if I did not have stomach pains I would certainly have it now.
USG report : no signs of appendicitis , marginal hepatomegaly.
Now what do you make of that ? It took another medicine man to explain the report and impose a lot of restrictions on my diet.
1 day of pain; 7 days of helter skelter between clinics , nursing homes and labs . End result , I am on a diet for the next 4 months.
No wonder the world of medicine is a mystery.

When I was young I had dreamt of becoming a doctor. Now I am a self confessed, clueless quack. I wonder, had I chased my dreams what kind of a medicine man would I have turned out to be .