A Hug to remember forever

Dr. Aiswarya V Namboodiri
Family Medicine specialist
Iqraa Hospital
Calicut, Kerala

Life in a medical college mostly revolves around friends, food, studies and practicing history taking of different patients – the latter two receiving utmost importance when the exams are round the corner.

It was my final year paediatric posting. Practical exams were coming up. One day a news spread like wildfire that a kid with Down’s syndrome had been admitted in the ward and would most likely be kept for the exams. We sprung to our feet. Ruffled through the pages of Paediatric text book for systematic clinical examination, definition of Down’s syndrome, points to be asked in history and detailed head to foot examination. Somewhere along the description it was written- “these children are cooperative, mostly happy and love music”. I could never have cared less for that statement at that moment.

Later my friends and I went to the ward to see the patient. There she was, a 5 year old girl with all the typical features of Down’s syndrome. Head-Brachycephaly -check, low set ears-check, mongloid slant of the eyes -check, simian crease-check .The mother was extremely cooperative and we got a detailed history. Then it was time for examining the child, the exam case. I bent down to the eye level of the child. I noticed that she had beautiful kajal rimmed eyes. She was smiling. Her verbal skills were not very developed. I took her hands to check for hypotonia and before I knew it, she jumped into my arms, hugged me tight and planted a kiss on my cheeks. The warmth of the hug was so overwhelming that I could feel the corners of my eyes burn. She was no more the ‘exam case’ but a lovable and happy child . “Did she love music”?, I asked her mother. “Yes”, she said. I hugged her back, gave her a chocolate, completed my work and thanked the mother . It was one among the most fruitful experiences of learning medicine and becoming a doctor, where I learnt a lot more than just about Down’s syndrome and experienced the gist of empathetic relation…