Raman's Blog

I happened to see the advertisement of Reva , a small environment friendly car which runs on electricity, about 2 years back and thought that it will soon revolutionize the Indian transportation. It seems so economic and ideal for the average Indian budget. The amazing thing about this car is its environment friendliness. It doesn’t gulp gallons of non renewable energy resource called gasoline and spit out toxic fumes in return. The cost of electricity one would use for every kilometer works out to be half a rupee per kilometre even if you buy really expensive electricity. The memories of seeing that advertisement in a pamphlet was freshened when I my eyes met a small car belonging to the postal department. I was surprised to see that it is indeed the little environment friendly car which I always wanted to see in large numbers in the Indian roads. I wish that small car all the best wishes and hope that it gets into the Indian roads in large numbers. Tags: car , reva , environment , ra...

Government of India has an online Grievance forum at http://darpg-grievance.nic.in/ You can use this tool to highlight the problems they faced while dealing with Government officials or departments Electricity board, Railways, BSNL, etc. I know many people might say that these things don't work in India. I am yet to experiment this resource yet as till now I haven't yet got a chance to complain. So use this grievance forum and educate others who don't know about this facility. This way we can at least raise our concerns instead of just talking about the “ System ” in India. Invite your friends to contribute for many such happenings . (The stock market benchmark Sensex today crossed the psychologically gratifying 19,000 points mark.) Tags: complaints , grievance , India , government

Doctor’s Guide (Docguide) has been a ready reference for doctors for quite a long time. But as the name suggests, it is a website which caters only to doctors and the general public has little to benefit from that web site. The web site can be personalized and the resources can be arranged according to individual preferences. What I like the most is the top bar containing CME video links which is called Peerview Media Bar. The site offers ready access links to a large number of medical journals, patient resources, case discussions and medical news from different specialties. It is a nice web page to be bookmarked as a homepage as all the important medical links can be neatly arranged in the personalized edition. You can also add the web sites of your choice to your personalized homepage. But you don’t have to give your username and password to access the personalized edition and this makes me wonder if someone can mess with someone else’s personalized homepage. Tags: docguide , doctor...

I wonder why most of the American drugs are searchable by their trade names in the google, rarely is it possible with the Indian drugs. The only ways by which Indian doctors could refer to the trade names of the Indian drugs was to look into catalogues like CIMS and IDR which are available as books or CDs. But Medclik offers MedCLIK Drug Reference which the site describes as India's most reliable and comprehensive drug information for doctors. You can also check the MCI (Medical Council of India) registration of doctors in India and get lists of hospitals accredited by the MCI and DNB. In addition the site offers a variety of services like medical news updates, health calculators, and resources for medical students and much more. Tags: reference , indian , drugs , pharmaceutical , pharmacy , cims , idr , medclik

It is just a regular scene in my clinic when I ask a patient about the medical records he/she possesses about the past surgical procedures he underwent or some other significant illness, the patient responds innocently that it has been many years since that happened and the documents are now misplaced or not available. In this case, if only that patient had a unique ID and all the records were in an online database such incidents will be mentioned only in the history text books. So I was searching for such online databases which can be accessed for free and came up with the following links. Interactive Personal Health Record - iHealthRecord – This service has been there for quite some time and offers a great service for free. But Microsoft has started it’s new service in consumer health care market by offering free personal health records on the Web which is called HealthVault . Similar to iHealthrecord, the personal information will be stored in a secure, encrypted database. Its priv...

The Clinical Cases and Images - Blog is a blog of ClinicalCases.org with medical, tech and other interesting stories and is one of the greatest medical blog site at present in the blogosphere. URL: It's Interview Time Again for Future Residents -- See Helpful Tips The clinical cases and images blog have compiled a few useful links for the U.S. medical students and international medical graduates (IMGs) who are preparing their ERAS applications and waiting for interview offers from residency program. Tags: blog , residency , tips

World Mental Health Day is observed on 10 October every year to raise public awareness about mental health issues. This year's theme is "Mental health in a changing world: the impact of culture and diversity." The 2007 World Mental Health Day campaign, an initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health, will bring attention to trans-cultural mental health services and treatment. According to the WHO one person in every 35 is an international migrant. Dramatically different languages, religions and cultures coexist in a single country and the cultural diversity may influence many aspects of mental health, including how individuals from a given culture communicate and manifest their symptoms, their style of coping, their family and community supports, and their willingness to seek treatment.

As an advocate of modern medicine, I’ve always been skeptic about the efficacy of practices like yoga and meditation and have never bothered to delve much into those areas. But I was always curious about techniques that will improve our ability to perform in our day to day lives and help us to realize our full potential. That is how I became interested in “Transcendental Meditation” as advocated by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and learnt some basics of TM. My Acharya (teacher) was Mr. Sasidharan of Maharishi Ved Vigyan Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram. The TM basically consists of 7 steps as was advised to me by my Acharya. 1) Sit comfortably 2) Close your eyes 3) Wait for about 30 seconds 4) Meditation proper 5) Stop meditation 6) Wait for 2 minutes or more with eyes closed 7) Open your eyes slowly Meditation proper: Repeatedly chant the sacred mantra (in my opinion, it can be as simple as “Aum” or Om) inside your mind in a progressively decreasing tone and amplitude. The mantra should be chan...