Health Promotion Board, a stint?

Let me begin with what I know for sure. CRYSTALS.

Students in the Department of Chemistry create harmless crystals in the MCC labs (UG and PG).

It is not MDMA, inspired by Breaking Bad by Vance Gulligan - TV series, haunting music, and the Periodic Table, which won several Emmy Awards and produced the Series three decades later. (methylenedioxyaminemethamphetamine), known in the underworld as Meth (crystals, light blue aquamarine in colour, or just a tinge of blue hardly noticeable from the lightest blue aquamarine clear crystals, when consumed catalysed with a can of beer kicking off the effect with hot and cold waves possessing and travelling through the body, and no one can be an enemy, all are friends as long as it lasts in the bloodstream and body light and flexible, dancing through the night with no fatigue. The next day is the killer, which takes out all the fun in you of the previous night, and a ballet dancer that you were last night will be turned into a sloth and sore and moving with aching joints stretched beyond the limits a joint can be pushed the previous night. In the clubbing arena, Ecstasy Pills, the underground best-seller pill in various colours, is a party drug. It is not a legitimate pharmaceutical pill manufactured in legitimate pharmaceutical organisations based on micrograms, milligrams, or grams weighed accurately based on the pill dosage as legalised drugs manufactured in reputed life-saving drug manufacturing companies like Abbott Laboratories, Merck & Co, and Pfizer, to mention a few.

Being a Chemistry student, Labs and Crystals and how they crystallise before your eyes in the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Laboratories in MCC, Madras (now Chennai) are exhilarating as we watch them turn into shiny crystals, and I was carried away with the flow as what I read sometimes pours out and, when written, leaps out of the pages with telling effect.

After my postgraduate studies, joining IIT Madras (PhD Bio-Chemistry), why I discontinued was beyond my understanding within a couple of months and earned the ire of my Guide, who still held a grudge a decade later, which surprised me. How did I get to know this information?

My School batch mate, Krishnakumar, who did his M.Sc Chemistry in IIT Madras, visited me in Singapore when he was on the way to San Francisco in 1993 and, with an evil grin on his face, looked at me and asked, "What in the hell did you do man"? Perplexed, I quizzically looked at him without an inkling of where he was coming from and what he had to say.

He revealed that the position after I had quit IIT Madras had been filled by his wife! (Incidentally, his wife also has my wife's name) the world is small. My Guide had revealed to my friend's wife with rancour that she picked me from the big queue waiting for the single position as she was impressed with my interview performance in 1983 that I left in a couple of months and to the extent directed I had started to collect the Chemical Abstracts (1983). I had no inkling that it would be held to heart as a premier institution; the next in line would automatically take my place, and I can only apologise to my Guide, who may or may not reach her.

A little digression is much more enjoyable in a long read.

I am a postgraduate from Madras Christian College, the first fully autonomous university affiliated with Madras University. Our curriculum stood out, and being the first Autonomous affiliation, the standards were set great in rank and status, and our tasks were demanding.

While in undergraduate, the first two semesters had English as a subject, and from the entire batch of all disciplines like Sciences (Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics), Literature, Commerce, Economics, Statistics and out of the entire cahoot each class with 33 students the cream were segregated based on the capability - A1(one), A2 (two) being the top end to F being the ones who needed help and the curriculum was set, based on the segregation). A few of us were in A1, and I was in A1 (one). Let me be frank, the segregation had students who could easily be in the upper echelons, A1 and A2.

A1 had an English Teacher, Mr Robert Burns (British, as I decipher based on his speech intonations), and during one of the Class sessions, he asked us to talk impromptu about illegitimate drugs and students falling prey to addiction, and that topic landed on me as luck would have it. Robert Burns was entertaining, and British sarcasm poured out occasionally during his classes, but it did not hurt. He was a good teacher and harmless, extremely humorous satire. MCCians were known as the Gentlemen of MCC.

I was not pathetic in Tamil; I was no scholar, though, and I passed through. However, being the mother tongue and listening to the stories my lovable storyteller narrated in Tamil (I vastly improved), my paternal grandmother, the only daughter and descendant of the Royal Magician, Hypnotist, Mesmerist, Royal Illusionist and Cabalistic Entertainer, my great-grandfather and his way of living.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/prof-swaminatha-sastry-gold-medallist-from-king-george-bharathan-1iy6c/

Work - Explanation:

By the way, mid-eighties, Pfizer's Orthopaedics products from their Howmedica Division (later taken over by Stryker) based on Swiss AO standard made Implants and Instruments for Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery(Screws and Plates), Trial Axial Joints for Total Knee (TKR- Distal Femoral Condyle, Proximal Tibial Condyle, Cartilage, Patella), Total Hip Replacements (THR - Acetabular Cup, Ceramic or steel ball that fits into the socket of the Acetabular Cup, Total Implants Mini implants for Maxillofacial surgeries, Orthodontics which later has undergone radical improvements with bio-compatible material made lighter using Titanium Alloys with Chromium and Molydenum. 316L Steel is biocompatible but heavy. If not pure 316L steel, it can become sceptic in situ after implantation due to the use of Pharmaceutical grade USP Bone Cement, which sets in 3 minutes to hold the femoral stem and tibial stem in a Total Knee Replacement (an example). Revision Surgery of Sceptic Joints Fitted is complicated as a window has to be created, drilling into the femur and tibia around the stems. Imagine a Road drilled, with the thumper drill and the debris removed by an excavator which follows the substantial drilling equipment (Caterpillar, for example)

Sarcoma Cases and Limb Salvaging: There is a sense of satisfaction when sarcoma cases patients are saved with just-in-time custom-made limb-salvaging Orthopaedic Implants that would have otherwise hastened their death, depending on the advanced stage of the sarcoma. Preserving a limb from amputation (for example, gangrene that spreads fast can reach all the way to the Pelvis structure, Acetabulum, the depth of the Acetabulum, Porosity as drilling has to be well calculated based on bone density to avoid drilling past the Acetabular depth) to see them live and a new lease of life and a happy family. Osteoporosis can prevent the implantation and crippling. It costs, and many suffer to death as they can ill afford (though agonised, the agony is not extended as metastasis of the lungs sets in fast).

Singapore: I encountered a case where an Orthopaedic Surgeon in Mount Elizabeth Hospital called me for a meeting to discuss the case of a Vietnamese Sarcoma patient needing a saddle. I gave a quote to the doctor, adding just the expenses cost for CAT, MRI, and full-scale actual dimensions of the pelvic structure X-ray. The Vietnamese patient could not afford it. In 6 months, he succumbed to cancer and passed away. A life ended - money makes the difference whether a life can be extended for a few more years. How do we keep the costs affordable and attempt to save lives without compromising bio-compatibility?

Health Promotion Board, Singapore, can be challenging if I get called. I hope so. Being a passion with hands-on knowledge, I add value to the Board.

Thanks and Regards

Ram