Observations and Ruminations- (1) Srianee Dias

A NEW SERIES: Observations and Ruminations

No 1: Is Our Dependency on Gadgetry Making Us Stupid?

By Srianee Dias (who is the "brains" behind this idea)

 Lately, I have noticed that the various gadgets I have acquired in the recent past are making me stupid.  Yes, it may be a moot point, but I blame the gadgets!

 My new electric toothbrush beeps when it is time to change the brush!  So, why bother to remember?

 I recently decided to lease a car that I have been eyeing for a long time.  It is a sporty sedan - no more SUVs, which are too clunky and clumsy for me!  The problem is that the car communicates with me and seems to be taking over my brain.  I realize that most cars these days are designed with these so-called ‘safety features’, but the downside of it is that the drivers do not have to think or use their own judgement anymore.  Will that lead to brain atrophy and speed up the onset of dementia?  I am worried…

 There is a setting in my car which alerts me when I drift lanes.  Maybe I need it, but even a slight shift sets off the beep.  It is irritating, so I have switched it off!

Recently the fuel level went down to 1/4 and I received a text message on my phone which said “Your fuel level is low!”  I made a quick trip to the gas station, because I was concerned that the next message would be one scolding me or threatening me.

 Yes, there are some good safety features too.  When I turn on the indicator to switch lanes, I hear a loud beep if someone is in the lane next to me.  I usually know this fact ahead of time because I have checked the rearview mirror.  I do this to indicate my intention to the driver in the next lane.  But my car assumes that I am negligent and beeps so loudly that it startles me.  On the contrary, the beeps that occur when I reverse out of a parking spot, and someone walks behind my car are well appreciated.

With all these computers making up the intrinsic innards of a car, glitches are inevitable.  A few days ago, a message appeared on my dashboard screen.  “Schedule an Oil Change” was the message.  What? The car is barely 2 months old and I have not even reached 2000 miles!  When I called, the person at the service department of the dealership suggested that I ignore the message and show up for the regular service when I reached 10,000 miles.  “No way” was my response.  I didn’t want this message flashing in my face every time I started the car.  So off I went to the dealership and they reset the computer in just a few minutes.

 Don’t even get me started on GPS navigation!  This is an ongoing argument within my family.  I find my way to unfamiliar destinations by consulting maps (sometimes the paper kind and often Google/Apple maps on my computer) before I set out on my journey.  I like to get a visual image of my trip.  Sometime I write the instructions down on a piece of paper, which helps me remember the street names and the turns.  Getting behind the wheel of my car and trusting Siri or some other computer voice to guide me blindly to my destination is not comfortable for me.  I guess I am somewhat of a dinosaur, but I tell my younger relatives that their over-dependency on navigation systems will lead to atrophy of their hippocampi.  Alas, nobody pays attention to my advice!

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NOTE from Speedy- Please send me your contribution on any topic based on your observations and ruminations.

A personal tribute to my wonderful friend Zita. By Pram

A personal tribute to my wonderful friend, Zita

Pramilla Senanayake

“One last breath has gone, and The 5^th of October was a fateful day. Got messages from Nisha & Rohan that Zita was no more. I was in total disbelief.  In fact, I was in disbelief until the 27^th of October when I saw for myself on zoom the remains of our dear Zita being brought into the chapel and the last rites being administered”.

Until then I could not even write to the blog about our dear Zita. Now a week or so after her funeral I feel I want to pen a few lines about our beloved Zita. 

I remember well our first few weeks at medical college as freshers. I did not get to know Zita too well but respected her as a good catholic girl a soft-spoken simple and humble person. 

Years went by.

Our friendship was strengthened when she and Joe moved to the UK, and they set up home in Wembley. I was already living in Wembley, and we spent a lot of time together in each other’s homes. Got to know Joe and the kids well. 

Fast forward, I had moved back to SL  and was living happily here when one fateful day in October 2012  I had a serious shuttlecock injury to my left eye, two ophthalmologists in SL said they could not operate on my eye since the damage to it was quite severe. My dear friend from school and medical school days, Chirasri was a senior ophthalmologist here in Sri Lanka. I immediately got in touch with her and told her about my eye injury. She promptly contacted Zita our friend & colleague in the UK. Zita got to work immediately and made all the necessary arrangements to have the surgery at the Moorfields hospital in London. At the eleventh hour, as I was getting ready to travel to the UK the good Lord intervened and through Chirasri found me a surgeon who was able to perform the surgery in Colombo. 

As time went on Zita and I got closer and closer. We talked on the phone regularly and chattered about our families, the situation in Sri Lanka and the wonders and miracles that our God had done. 

2022 was a special year. I was in the UK on 3 separate occasions. On each occasion, I travelled down to Westcliff on Sea, once by train and twice my dear friend Lakshi drove me all the way to Westcliff on Sea. Those times together were special I usually took her some Sri Lankan goodies from London. Might be Lampries or patties Whatever it was she enjoyed them and was very complementary. 

Those times together were unforgettable. I realized more and more what an amazing person she was. She realised the seriousness of her illness but continued with all the treatment knowing very well she wanted to continue to live for the sake of Joe Nisha Rohan and their families. 

Zita  loved life more than anything, she fought without ever complaining, and that was so until the end, with dignity and energy.  Zita  also taught me to live every day as if it were the best day; she filled the world with a beautiful smile, a big heart and a big joy.  I realised that a  terminally ill disease can be too invasive and destructive to the human body, even after treatment is over, the body fights back, trying to rebuild all the damage caused by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. 

Dear Zita succumbed and is no more. Her family organised a memorial service in her honour on the 27th of October, a fitting tribute to my dear departed friend. One last breath has gone and ended 

Good bye dearest Zita.     Pram

Speedy Dialogue Series 11.Dr Subramanium Balachandran

 Speedy Dialogue Series 

 Episode 11: Dr Subramanium Balachandran

 “Sharing my hobbies with my Batchmates”

 Speedy: Good morning, Bala. I am so pleased that you accepted my invitation to appear in my Dialogue Series. 

Bala: Speedy, I thought it was a great idea. Thank you very much 

Speedy: Bala, let us commence with some background information. Believe it or not, 60 years have passed since we entered the Medical Faculty! A lot has happened to all of us since then. 

Bala: It certainly has Speedy, sixty years, that is a long time!

Speedy: But let me focus on you today. I am interested to know how you chose Medicine as a career. 

Bala:. Speedy, in fact, I was doing applied math in middle and high school, and my sister, Indrani, was pursuing medicine. However, as the saying goes got to have "My son the Doctor“ in the family, so I had to switch midstream to medicine. Thanks to Rev. Father Margesz, I was able to get my biology squared away. 

Speedy: We know your sister Indrani very well. She is a regular at our London mini-reunions. Her daughter Rose is kind enough to provide transport. Being a loving and dutiful daughter, she knows how much these outings matter to her mother. 

Bala: My niece Rose is indeed a very special person. 

Speedy: Do you get a chance to look at the Blog?

Bala: Yes I do read the Blog, although I must confess, I haven’t posted any comments -something I want to put right with your help Speedy 

Speedy: Very happy to help 

Bala: Thanks, Speedy.  

Speedy: Bala, tell us a bit more about your career choice and how you pursued it. 

Bala: Delighted to do so.  I read a book written by a British surgeon named George Sava, in which he was describing an appendectomy done through mini incisions. This book gave me the impetus to become a Surgeon. After graduating from Medical School, I immigrated to the US, and I was able to attain my ambition and became a Surgeon. 

Speedy: I always say that those who are brave enough to pursue their dreams will succeed. 

Bala: Very true, couldn’t agree with you more. There are also those who inspire you. I am sure you would have heard of the world-renown “Father of Cardiovascular Surgery “Dr Michael E. DeBakey 

Speedy: Yes, of course, the famous Cardiovascular surgeon of Lebanese origin based in Texas. 

Bala: Yes, that is the one. Well, I had the privilege of doing my Vascular Fellowship with Dr De Bakey. 

Speedy: Fantastic! I am sure you learnt a lot, and he must have been a great source of inspiration. 

Bala: He sure was, most definitely. 

Speedy: Is there anything more you want to say about him or talk of any anecdotes involving him? 

Bala: Yes, indeed. He was the first to classify Dissecting Aneurysms and treatments. He was able to successfully surgically treat a patient with aortic dissection in 1955. Ironically, he was diagnosed, I believe, with type II Dissecting Aneurysm in 2005 and was successfully operated by his associate Dr Noon and he went on to continue to teach and perform surgery. He died at the age of 98 in July 2008. 

Speedy: That was quite a story Bala. You carried on as a vascular surgeon for how long? 

Bala: I was in practice for four decades and finally hung up my “Surgical shingle “ in 2012. 

Speedy: Have you stopped working completely? 

Bala: No, I still do some work. currently, I work in the Emergency Department of an Ambulatory Surgical Center, seeing mostly post-surgical patients. This keeps my Betz cells active. 

Speedy: That is of course, an individual choice. If it suits you and you enjoy the work, that’s fine 

Bala: I do Speedy. I also feel that I am contributing to society with my skills as a doctor. 

Speedy: That’s great Bala. 

I must confess that I don’t know much about your family. I am sure readers would like an update. 

Bala: Sure thing Speedy. I am married and have three kids, a son Robert, an Attorney, the second, a daughter Maureen, an Educator pursuing her Doctorate in Education and the third, a son Niran, who is a Biomedical Engineer. His latest invention is an oesophageal cooling probe to facilitate cardiac ablative therapies. This is pending FDA approval at this juncture. 

Speedy: Clearly a very clever lad. And your wife, is she a doctor too? 

Bala: No, Pat is not a doctor. she has a doctorate in Nursing. Pat and I also enjoy our five grandchildren and are waiting on the last one to finish high school in another year and go on to college. 

Speedy: Bala, let us talk about your hobbies and interests, shall we? 

Bala: Of course, Speedy. In my spare time, which was few and far between while I was in practice, I enjoyed woodworking (self-taught), gardening both flowers and vegetables and the game of Golf. I do try my culinary skills on occasion, but needless to say, Pat beats me hands down! 

Speedy: I bet she does! And you are clearly a creative person. Also, it is Lovely to hear that you play golf. I am biased, of course, but anybody who plays golf is a good egg! 

Bala: Ha! Ha! I heard that you play a lot of golf.  I would love to talk more about it, but I know you want me to talk about my woodwork and carpentry. 

Speedy: Indeed I do, if you don’t mind. Tell us about some of the projects you enjoyed most. 

Bala: My largest carpentry and woodworking project was the renovation of an attic above a free-standing garage, turning it into an entertainment room with a built-in bar, in the seventies 

Speedy: Wow! That must take a lot of skill and time. 

Bala: It did, but I thoroughly enjoyed doing it, and it was joyful to see it when I completed it. Gave me a lot of satisfaction 

Speedy: I bet it did. You said it was in the seventies. Were all the tools required available at that time? 

Bala: Power tools were available, but not anywhere close to today’s standards. The advent of cordless tools has definitely changed carpentry and woodworking as we know it now. In fact, my interest in woodworking started with the arrival of Power tools. 

Speedy: Skill and dexterity are important but like in surgery, you need the proper tools. Am I right? 

Bala: Absolutely. Imagine trying to place a screw into a hardwood with hand tools! In the mid-nineties, my grandson Mitchell was all into ‘ Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends, and this prompted me to build an HO model train layout depicting ‘ The Island of SODOR’ This was a very trying adventure, but I think it came out OK, and he had a blast running his trains. 

Speedy: And what else did you create? 

Bala: From there, I moved on to building cabinetry and niceties. I did some oil painting in the seventies but that took the back burner. Besides woodworking and golf, I loved gardening too. Time to indulge in these was a problem when I was working. 

Speedy: Now that you work less, are you able to devote more time to these activities? 

Bala: Well, yes and no! Since we moved into this house, I lost my 1000 sq foot work shop and now the garage is my temporary workshop. 

Speedy: I see. You kindly sent some photos of some of your creations. Please tell us something more about them. 

Bala: I shall talk through them with the photos and when I did them

(1) Train layout of Island of Sodor in 1998.   

(2) Coffee Tray with inlay 2000. 

(3) Cherry Coffee Table with inlay in 2003, 

(4) TV  Entertainment Center with cherry and maple, 

(5) Night Lamp table 2000, 

(6) Antique Golf Club (1930s) display cabinet- 2015, 

(7) Japanese wine rack 2008. 

Speedy: I was really impressed by your work and would love to see them. The next best thing was to see the photographs. What I saw was the work of a skilled and creative technician who must have spent a lot of time producing these.

I am so glad that we are able to share these with our batch colleagues, and may I thank you once again for appearing in my Series and wish you and your family all the best. 

Bala: Thank you, Speedy for your kind words and encouragement and for inviting me for this wonderful conversation which I enjoyed so much.

                                                                     

 

CoMSAA) reunion - October 2022

Colombo Medical Alumni Association (CoMSAA) reunion on the 29^th of October 2022

Pramilla Senanayake

(Social secretary- CoMSAA)

After a lapse of two years, the Colombo Medical Alumni Association (COMSAA) held their reunion last Saturday. The event was held at the new Faculty of Medicine  Tower, a beautiful 11-storey brand-new building with its rooftop giving 360-degree views of Colombo and beyond. It was the ideal setting for this reunion. 

Over 130 alumni graced the occasion. Our batch was represented by just 4 of us. Indra Anandasabapathy. Bandula Jayasekera, Sanath Lamabadusuriya and myself. I wish more of us could have been there on this joyous occasion. 

The afternoon commenced with an academic session. There were 3 very fascinating talks.

First, a chilling lecture by Prof Ravi Fernando on “Suicide homicide or murder”.

The next was by Prof Arosh Fernando on “Schubert's death: Lesson on facilitating a good death”.    

And the final talk was by Prof  Dinithi Fernando, who entertained the audience with her talk “The musical missionary: A harmonious interlude in Sri Lankan history”. 

During her talk there were interludes of singing by her students.

After the academic session, which was held in the 250-seater state-of-the-art first-floor auditorium, we moved to the rooftop for dinner. We were entertained by our own medical college orchestra. There was superb music and good food; plenty of raffle prizes too. 

A good time was had by all. Sorry, I wish you all were here!

Pramilla