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Goethe
Noble be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
sets him apart
From every other creature
On earth.
(from The Divine, 1783)

   "What you don't feel, you will not grasp by art,
Unless it wells out of your soul
And with sheer pleasure takes control,
Compelling every listener's heart.
But sit and sit,and patch and knead,
Cook a ragout, reheat your hashes,
Blow at the sparks and try to breed
A fire out of pile of ashes!
Children and apes may think it great,
If that should titillate your gum,
But from heart to heart you will never create.
If from your heart it doesn't come."
(from Faust I)

   Finally my ENT rotation has come to an end. As we had little to do in terms of patients on the last day in the clinic we all sat together and had a good chit chat with the coordinator of the rotation. He is one person in medical school who would care to talk about anything apart from medicine. Has a varied approach to life and philosophy of life; wouldn't say extra ordinary but quite good. He seemed to be a big fan of Goethe and that triggered todays post. It seems that ENT is not a taxing field as compared to general surgery or ophthalmology or other surgical sub-specialities and thus one has ample time to concentrate on other aspects of life. There hardly are any emergencies. Even foreign body in the nose is not considered an emergency what more I need say. On calls in this surgical field are the lightest. But this doesn't mean that all those who work in this department bum around or are mere slugs, no they are not. But as someone today remarked ENT is a balanced field between surgical skill and medical mindedness. Working in a metropolitan like Karachi, where pollution is another name for the air we breathe and beetle nut chewing is a hobby relished by almost all irrespective of creed cast or colour and is carried out more rigidly than religious duties, one gets ample chance to treat both medical and surgical cases. Medicine for the allergics and surgery for the beetle nut die hard fans.

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