HEALTHCARE · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE · PATIENT EXPERIENCE Years ago, at a government hospital, I heard a surgeon say about a patient who kept asking him, "She must be a teacher." He was half-joking. She turned out to be one. It became my private joke: anyone who asks that many questions must be a teacher. I didn't know I'd think of that remark again. I think of it now because the patient who asks too many questions is no longer rare. She is in my family. Perhaps you have encountered her, too. A new kind of conversation My mother, my uncles, and my aunts are not medical professionals. When an unfamiliar symptom appears, they don't know the terminology, the likely causes, or the right questions to ask. But they have found ChatGPT and Gemini, and they talk to them like buddies. A symptom prompts a question, an answer prompts another, and nobody waits. Voice input matters most. They don't have to type a carefully worded query or know the medical term. They s...
Surely, SUPW (Socially Useful Productive Work) was something I enjoyed at school not because we could do something worthwhile as the initials stood for, It was like a silver lining during the exams when we could take leave to prepare for exam or perhaps even skip school for a Saturday Sunday outing by missing on a half day school which had two periods of SUPW .
SUPW class was meant to give us an opportunity to be introduced to newer skills which we under normal circumstances avoided. It was CBSE's smart initiative to make it a part of its curriculum. Strikingly a number of projects that I have executed until now owe their roots to those formative years.
The cognitive abilities acquired then, have been the foundation stones to many projects taught to my children. Every time an idea was required I had something new to offer for which I was gratefully thanked by my two teenagers. Though my creative talent oscillated between bad to good I had a wonderful and enriching experience which I valued almost always.
The only project which I ever did and the inspiration for which I owe to my father was a huge Paper Mache wall in my home. That was a simple case of plagiarism but between father and daughter it has no legal repercussions. Before I actually sat down with my project I did a number of pilot tests most of which were unsuccessful. Finally something clicked and wow! I achieved the desired result.
The hunt for the ply board, their rates, quality and the transporting charges added new dimensions to the project. A special mention I wish to make here that it was something I had decided to do all by myself. I was open to suggestions from everyone but the final decision was my privilege. Believe me! That was a real learning experience. I learnt being decisive and enjoying the fruits of my labor.
The craft work would then start by late night and continue till midnights, how many, I seem to have lost count of them.
The work progressed at a snail’s pace stretching from days to weeks to months. Every morning I would go and sit right in front of my last night's work and sit admiring it. I loved to see it and showing it for it was something really exquisite.
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