Doctors, Medical Students have HIGH RISK of getting Tuberculosis.Publication: TOI_MumbaiDate: 25/03/2008 Section: Times City Page Number: 2
Click here to ASK THE DOCTOR
TB taking heavy toll on medicos too
Madhavi Rajadhyaksha I TNN
Mumbai:
Would you want to be treated by a doctor suffering from tuberculosis (TB)?
While one may shudder at the thought, the grim scenario is borne out in the city's public hospitals with several student-doctors falling prey to the disease they are out to treat.
"We have come across an increasing number of TB cases among resident doctors and have intimated the hospital authorities,'' said Dr Deepak Pathak of MARD (Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors) on Monday.
Hectic work hours, irregular meal timings and regular exposure to TB-infected patients put doctors at high risk.
While doctors rarely maintain statistics, a quick look around the city's hospitals on World TB Day showed doctors in their twenties landing up in hospital wards with various forms of TB and others quietly popping anti-TB medicines between hospital duties.
Take the case of 28-year-old Ketan Mahadik (name changed), who works in JJ Hospital's medicine department and describes himself as "otherwise healthy''.
Trouble first showed up when Mahadik had a backache for over a month. "I ignored it till I started feeling a shooting pain and found my fingers going numb,'' he recalled. A scan revealed that he was suffering from TB of the spine. "I was bedridden for two months, worked with a collar for a month and was on TB medication for a year."
From one hospital to another, budding doctors narrate similar experiences. A 23-year-old from KEM Hospital said he acquired pulmonary TB a few months ago but couldn't skip work as it would prolong his internship. MARD estimates show that 20 student-doctors in KEM alone suffered from TB in the last six months.
An anaesthesia student from civic-run Sion Hospital, Ashwini Patil (28), committed suicide last May, blaming prolonged illness from TB in her suicide note.
Dr Alaka Deshpande, who heads JJ Hospital's medicine department, explained that "resident doctors were overworked and their irregular eating habits often lowered their immunity, making them susceptible to such infections''.
Currently treating a resident doctor for multi-drug-resistant TB, she said the government should provide health allowance for such occupational hazards.
Overcrowded wards mean isolation of TB patients is not practical in public hospitals. The contrast to TB management in the west is highlighted in an article, Worlds Apart—TB in India and the United States, published by Dr Vikram Paralkar, an alumnus of KEM, in the March 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
"I, born and raised in Mumbai, find it much easier to treat tuberculosis on the other side of the earth, where I can isolate patients with infectious diseases and treat them by the book, all at minimal risk to my own health,'' he said.
The article cited research findings that pegged TB infection in a north Indian medical school at 17 cases of active tuberculosis per 1,000 medical residents per year as opposed to two per 1,000 in the general population, and 0.05 per 1,000 in the general US population.
WORLD TB DAY
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by micro-organism—Mycobacterium tuberculosis— which spreads from person to person through air.
It shows up as fever, breathing difficulty, loss of weight and may include coughing, chest pain and blood-filled cough in the case of TB of the lungs.
It usually affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but could also affect the bones, kidneys, brain or skin.
Publication: TOI_Mumbai
Date: 25/03/2008
Section: Times City
Page Number: 2
Sexual Health Link
Hectic work hours, irregular meal timings and regular exposure to TB-infected patients put doctors at high risk.
Click here to ASK THE DOCTOR
TB taking heavy toll on medicos too
Madhavi Rajadhyaksha I TNN
Mumbai:
Would you want to be treated by a doctor suffering from tuberculosis (TB)?
While one may shudder at the thought, the grim scenario is borne out in the city's public hospitals with several student-doctors falling prey to the disease they are out to treat.
"We have come across an increasing number of TB cases among resident doctors and have intimated the hospital authorities,'' said Dr Deepak Pathak of MARD (Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors) on Monday.
Hectic work hours, irregular meal timings and regular exposure to TB-infected patients put doctors at high risk.
While doctors rarely maintain statistics, a quick look around the city's hospitals on World TB Day showed doctors in their twenties landing up in hospital wards with various forms of TB and others quietly popping anti-TB medicines between hospital duties.
Dr Alaka Deshpande, who heads JJ Hospital's medicine department, explained that "resident doctors were overworked and their irregular eating habits often lowered their immunity, making them susceptible to such infections''.
Currently treating a resident doctor for multi-drug-resistant TB, she said the government should provide health allowance for such occupational hazards.
Take the case of 28-year-old Ketan Mahadik (name changed), who works in JJ Hospital's medicine department and describes himself as "otherwise healthy''.
Trouble first showed up when Mahadik had a backache for over a month. "I ignored it till I started feeling a shooting pain and found my fingers going numb,'' he recalled. A scan revealed that he was suffering from TB of the spine. "I was bedridden for two months, worked with a collar for a month and was on TB medication for a year."
TB infection in a north Indian medical school at 17 cases of active tuberculosis per 1,000 medical residents per year as opposed to two per 1,000 in the general population, and 0.05 per 1,000 in the general US population.
Dr Vikram Paralkar, an alumnus of KEM, in the March 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
From one hospital to another, budding doctors narrate similar experiences. A 23-year-old from KEM Hospital said he acquired pulmonary TB a few months ago but couldn't skip work as it would prolong his internship. MARD estimates show that 20 student-doctors in KEM alone suffered from TB in the last six months.
An anaesthesia student from civic-run Sion Hospital, Ashwini Patil (28), committed suicide last May, blaming prolonged illness from TB in her suicide note.
Dr Alaka Deshpande, who heads JJ Hospital's medicine department, explained that "resident doctors were overworked and their irregular eating habits often lowered their immunity, making them susceptible to such infections''.
Currently treating a resident doctor for multi-drug-resistant TB, she said the government should provide health allowance for such occupational hazards.
Overcrowded wards mean isolation of TB patients is not practical in public hospitals. The contrast to TB management in the west is highlighted in an article, Worlds Apart—TB in India and the United States, published by Dr Vikram Paralkar, an alumnus of KEM, in the March 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
"I, born and raised in Mumbai, find it much easier to treat tuberculosis on the other side of the earth, where I can isolate patients with infectious diseases and treat them by the book, all at minimal risk to my own health,'' he said.
The article cited research findings that pegged TB infection in a north Indian medical school at 17 cases of active tuberculosis per 1,000 medical residents per year as opposed to two per 1,000 in the general population, and 0.05 per 1,000 in the general US population.
WORLD TB DAY
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by micro-organism—Mycobacterium tuberculosis— which spreads from person to person through air.
It shows up as fever, breathing difficulty, loss of weight and may include coughing, chest pain and blood-filled cough in the case of TB of the lungs.
It usually affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but could also affect the bones, kidneys, brain or skin.
Publication: TOI_Mumbai
Date: 25/03/2008
Section: Times City
Page Number: 2
Sexual Health Link
| |||
ALL POSTS | ASK THE DOCTOR |
Comments