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Carol Wiley Cassella, M.D., Editor

Cardiac Anesthesiologist: The Friend of the Heart

Sandeep Kumar Kar, M.D.*

I stand at the head end of the patient, a speechless witness to the kind cruelty of the surgeons scalpel. I have seen myriad hearts some dilated, some with abnormal orifices, some with rickety-going valves, similar to my flow in the stagnant city traffic stream. Sometimes, I draw analogy, between emotions in the heart and cardiac anatomy. What do people mean, when they say, a big heart!, a kind heart!. Are emotions nurtured in the heart? I have seen bureaucrats, politicians, both from emotional and anatomical view points. They do not have a big heart morphologically or emotionally, in spite of bearing the peoples mandate. I brood, Is politics a game of the heart? Often I wage a war against the stubbornness of the failing heart, with inotropes in my armament, each a soldier, combating, the stimulated receptors as opponents.

* Sandeep Kumar Kar, M.D., 01 Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research01 , Kolkata, 01 West Bengal, 01 India. sndpkar@yahoo.co.in Accepted for publication February 22, 2012.
Copyright 2012, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Anesthesiology 2012; XXX:11

Anesthesiology, V XXX No X

Month 2012

<zdoi;10.1097/ALN.0b013e3182531b6e>

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Mind to Mind

Sometimes, I become emotional, when I watch the returning cars in the light-bathed streets and the chirping birds in the azure sky, through the window screen with the music of the pulse oxymeter, reminding me not to sway, in the emotional stream. I nourish dreams of early home coming. I have learnt to accept time expansion is meant for me only. I have cultivated my patience, and driven the ravens of restlessness during my prolonged shifts, and stay in the fate changing recovery units. I am proud of being adept, in maintaining normal hemodynamics, amidst the autocracy of the surgeons scalpel. I am more powerful; a friend of the patients heart. Applause and laurels are miles away. My unsung Swansong is only known to me, never revealed. I have learnt to enjoy my work as an art, My power to curb the physiological insults of the surgeons action. I reap the fruits of my toil, when I see the smiling faces of the patients in the recovery units.

Anesthesiology 2012; XXX:11

Mind to Mind

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