Why people do not follow rules, the psychology of anti social behaviour and its impact to a common man

Imagine you travelling at night driving a car, you come across a red light at traffic junction. You are the only vehicle at this junction and you are tempted to stop due to the fact that it is red. You look well across all directions. Definitely there is no other vehicle. You then are tempted to go past the red light. If you know that there can be traffic cameras and you might receive a letter with fine and points on your license, then you suppress the temptation of crossing the red light, as you know it is only few seconds before it goes green.

The scenario i have given is a common sense approach. Even though the common sense tells you to override the red signal as there are no traffic, the regulatory fear of traffic camera stops you doing so.

If you had read my previous blog of hazard, risk and incident, then you understand that another moving vehicle or pedestrian is the hazard for you in the car. The risk is very low as it is middle of the night and you reduce the risk by looking well all around. you think the chance of an incident of an accident is so low that you want to take the chance and you are tempted to cross at the red signal.

As the society does not want you to take even that chance, the traffic camera makes you decide to stop.

But then this logic does not seem to work in India while you are driving. One of my patient i am treating at the moment is a handicapped polio patient who was driving a two wheeler. he came to a traffic signal where the signal was red. he duly followed the above logic and decided to stop.
He then landed at our hospital with a fracture of the leg and shoulder.

Why? Why and Why ! these are the questions he asked me and you are probably asking as well

Wait for my blog and i am sure if you are driving in India you already know why

Regards

Chockalingam

Risk, Hazard and Incident, apply to your work place wherever you are!! part 2

Hazards are everywhere. A knife is a hazard. A needle in a hospital is a hazard. A gun is a hazard. Everyone of what i have given as examples are necessary in some walk of life.

In Other Words, We cannot have a hospital without a knife or a needle as they are needed to treat a patient. A Gun is an essential tool for someone working in the army or high security police for example.

However if the hazard is in a persons hand's or at a time or in an situation where it is not expected to be, then the hazard can cause an incident. For example a kitchen knife in a child's hand, a gun in the hands of anti social, or water on a mosaic or marble floor.

However not every time the hazard is in this situation will cause an incident. There you have to calculate the risk of such an incident. For example not every time you travel in a road, one is involved in an accident. you have to view every object in the line of your travel such as a bus, lorry or even a dog on the road as hazard.

When travelling, you take a risk by crossing these hazards to reach your destination. You minimise the risk by driving slowly, taking extra care at nights, not drinking alcohol before you drive and so forth.

However you do not want to take any risks in some areas such as not giving a knife to a child as the risk though may be small, is too much to take.

Back to wherever you work, you start looking at things with a note of

1. Are there hazards
2. What is the exposure
3 What is the risk
4 Should i take the risk or not
5. Can i reduce the risk or avoid the risk altogether by avoiding the exposure altogether

Hope it makes sense

It would certainly make sense if you start applying.

You then ask the cleaner to put a notice that the floor is wet when he is cleaning to warn the people walking by that there is a small risk of falling and they have to walk more carefully.

All of us would put our waste in a bin and dispose appropriately to reduce the breeding of bugs which then would cause infection and so on and so forth

Regards

Chockalingam

Risk, Hazard and Incident, apply to your work place wherever you are!!

Incident is an event or occurance. We talk of incidents as unplanned or unexpected events in a hospital set up. We record them diligently and analyse them to ensure such events do not recur for improvement of patient care.

Patients in India always ask me one thing when i suggest a treatment say for example surgery. It is this " risk onnum illiye" meaning "there is no risk in this, is there?". Once i had explained infection as one of the risks in treating a fracture to one of the wife of a patient who had treatment under me.

At two weeks when the sutures were being removed, the wife asked me with real worry "there is no infection, is there?". One has to remember that this wife was one of the staff member of my hospital itself. Now the point of matter is no one wants to take a risk in undergoing a treatment.

Yet treatment has risks. If someone tells you that there is no risk, what they are really doing is to reassure you as an worried patient or relative. They cannot really mean it. Yes this is true.

It is true in real life in all walks of life and in all situations. If you look at travelling in a road in India, you carry huge risk of having an accident. Does this mean that you do not travel and stay in the house all the time. No you do travel and you take risks.

But what then is the issue. It is in knowing the risk analysis of a situation. In other words, if somehow you know how much risk you are taking, then you may decide, yes it is worth it or not.

Is quantification alone enough?. What would you accept for example, one percent, five percent or less? Because the reason you are taking the risk may push you to take a larger than five percent risk as opposed to taking less

Say for Example, one has cancer and the surgeon says, have surgery. The surgery carries risk, but then not having surgery carries far greater risk. Hence one goes with the option of having surgery.

But what can everyone do in a place wherever they are. You control the risk by being aware of the hazards and avoid the exposure. If you cannot avoid then control the dose of exposure

Stay with me and
I will post in my next blog

Regards

Chockalingam

" Process over Outcome". the importance in life in general and campaign for it

Recently We went to a temple in Tamil Nadu. This experience made me think about the above subject. Going to temple is one of the main events in India. The process though is for pilgrimage to see their favorite God, can also be seen as a break from work combined with visit to offer your prayers. . Hence apart from the holistic aspect, the trip should be relaxing and comfortable with safe travel and good food.

However if you have been at the site of such pilgrimage, the converse is often true. Unless you know someone who can get you to the front of the Deity by bypassing the queues, it is taxing and tiring. The stay and surroundings of a pilgrimage are not hygienic by any standards. In other words, such a trip can rarely be pleasing to your mind or body apart from the time you spend in front of the Deity of course.

Today, everyone is interested in the outcome.Like seeing your favorite God and praying in front of the Deity. You can see this importance given in day to day life. You go to the personal improvement section in libraries and book stalls, there is so much emphasis on achieving the best in life or something!

Are we then forgetting that Life is there to live as much as achieving something. The process you go through to achieve what you want should also be considered. I feel that the generations of today are concentrating on the achievement of money, fame and lose life on the way. I often say that a generation which do not see the sun light is what we are seeing today. Like spending time in front of the computers all the time!

Is this the reason why everyone is rushing day and day out. I see people speeding in India may be partly due to this attitude. They are always in a rush running somewhere, but never enjoying the process. In doing so, they miss the process which gives importance to comfort, hygeine and sanitation and safety at large.

Hence we should campaign for The Process as opposed to just the Outcome whatever we are doing. Now if you have read my previous blog on the AC mechanic who came to fit my AC did not have the right tools to fit it, then you realise that he can fit an AC and complete the job. However he never concentrated on the process and hence does not concentrate on what he needs to do the job.

or the man in one of my previous blogs who lost the leg by travelling in an already fully loaded auto and rolled over!

Process over the Outcome should be your personal campaign and if everyone does so, the world would be a better place to live.

as "Dolly Parton sings in her song"

I can elaborate more in the future as this blog can be confusing and i am editing to make this more clear.

Regards

Chockalingam

Seat Belts in Coaches[ buses], campaign for this in India and safety for our future generation.

I treated a patient with an elbow injury. he was one of the survivors of a bus which fell off a bridge and rolled over. there were few who died in the accident. you have to remember the death is often due to the passengers rolling inside the bus like the object inside the rattle

the object inside is the passenger and the cage is the bus. you can also see this video in youtube

watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UthhJLekANU

now this is the time for us to campaign for seat belt to be worn in the cars but more importantly to campaign for the new buses manufactured for long distance travel to be fitted with seat belts.

UK had made it mandatory for all new buses and coaches manufactured after 2001 to be fitted with seat belts. In India we are crying for all the need for more buses, good roads and we are getting both. But we are forgetting that safety has to be considered when more buses are on the good roads speeding to more destinations.

you will know what i am talking of if you travel at night on the national highways. the number of omni buses are so many and it takes one accident for all of us to realise this.

Oops, this has already happened. a reputed coach service was involved in this and then you really wonder that the time has already come for us to campaign for safer buses and public transport.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2087173.ece

Many would go for public transport for comfort and safety other than their own cars.

Hence let us lobby for coaches with seat belt and restrainers. We are already ten years behind UK in this issue


Chockalingam

Drive and be alive in India: follow the two second rule

In India, everyone seems to be rushing. The people are rushing while walking, driving a two wheeler, or three or a four wheeler or an eight wheeler. They must be going to do something very urgent, may be save someone from dying perhaps!!. But they do not know that they themselves need saving with the way they are going on public path and roads.

Yesterday we had a passenger in an auto which overturned with four passengers on board just because the driver was crazy. the injured passenger had the auto landed on his leg and as a result we took off the dead leg, amputated. no fault of his own but the driver who thought he can negotiate a corner without slowing the vehicle and forgetting that it has only three wheels!

Not many educated people know about the safe distance they have to follow when driving. The best and practical tip is to follow the two second rule. It is described well and you can eve do three second rule when driving in wet and rainy times.

go to this site to get general idea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-second_rule

for pictorial description

http://www.rulesoftheroad.ie/rules-for-driving/speed-limits/speed-limits_2-second-rule.html


If you can maintain two seconds from the vehicle in front and let all the drivers who are behind you and too close to pass by, the chances of being alive at the end of your driving is good, but not guaranteed.

let us ensure more of our friends and families follow the rule and one day eventually Driving in India would be safe! one can only hope, but not without trying, eh!!!


With best regards

Chockalingam

"You are what you eat": importance of diet, how to relate money and savings to diet

I say to my patients, to understand weight loss and methods, simply do opposite to what you do when you save money in banking. I hope this article puts this in perspective.

The phrase "You are what you eat" is a decent way of saying "you are what you put in your mouth". The latter phrase can make people who are obese or overweight cry but it does make sense. One of my friend and colleagues in UK used to say this latter phrase when advising on the risk factors of overweight.

When you want quick access to your money, you leave some funds in the current account. . You put your salary or income in this account. you keep only enough money to keep you afloat in the current account. You keep a reserve account, called savings account where you save a larger amount which you can transfer quickly to the current account when necessary.

Where you think you have surplus money for the time being, you look for investments, assets and shares. The money you save in these methods, will not be available for you straight away. you need to mobilise them to realise the money to the savings or the current account. In other words, it will take time.

Now compare this scenario in banking to how your food is sorted once we consume.

Blood glucose is the current account
Liver, muscles acts as the savings account[ glycogen]
Fat acts as the investment account equivalent.[fat]

Weight gain and loss is exactly the same process of banking when you think of carbohydrate we consume. The carbohydrate we consume, namely the rice and wheat first goes to the current account. There is surplus of glucose, to what is needed for the brain, the kidneys and the muscle and all the nerves in the form of ATP. Some amount of blood glucose is put in the savings account, namely the liver and muscle as glycogen.

When there is lot more food consumed in the form of glucose, they are converted to fat and stored in various sites like our belly. Rightly or wrongly they can be termed as our asset or the investment.

But in fact we should plan our glucose consumption completely the opposite way to how we do banking as i had compared.

We need to earn less
so that we only have money for the current account and savings account
In turn we can mobilise our fat reserves in our assets and investment account to empty them.

Sounds Drastic in banking terms, does it not!. But this is true for our glucose metabolism.

Consume less glucose
so that we have only reserves in liver, muscles
In turn we can mobilise our fat reserves in our bellies and other parts of our body to empty them

The above picture shows how we can plan this. remember the base of the pyramid is still the glucose base of our diet. Hence do not starve to reduce weight, instead have more servings but less in amount

please go to this link if you want to learn more

http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%201-2/carbohydrate_metabolism.htm

or even better

http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2000/document/contents.htm

as the authors of the above link say

"Aim....Build....Choose for Good Health"
Regards

Chockalingam