Meet Dr Sanjna Tiwari

The best moments in life are least expected. Until halfway through high school, I hadn’t even thought about pursuing medicine. Until the end of medical school I never planned to take up a clinical branch as my specialization. The morning of my NEET PG counselling, I wanted to specialise in  internal medicine but ultimately got anaesthesiology. I got placed in New Delhi, my dream city; also where I didn’t expect to end up during the first wave of COVID-19. 
There I was, a first year anaesthesia and critical care resident with absolutely zero clinical experience. Piece of advice: don’t miss out on your internship. Within a week I was working in the COVID ICU. I still remember crying inside my PPE because I couldn't withdraw ABGs properly, or because I saw people dying helplessly, or thinking whether I'll ever be able to do anyone any good. And I wondered to myself whether I'm okay with this uncertainty that had enveloped all of us. The covid waves kept shoring and I kept working. Some days I would think about the ‘What Ifs?’ - What if I had continued with maths and pursued being a pilot or engineer like I had intended was the biggest of them all. 

Then one fine night, after endless failed intubations, cannulations and haphazard resuscitations, at 3 am, I received a call from the labour room about a patient who had collapsed and needed intubation urgently. This was also completely a surprise, because that day I had to do it alone. And that was the day, when I went in, intubated the patient , conducted the resuscitation and revived a 20 something year old lady, got her shifted to the ICU and after 5 days saw her awake and alive being shifted to the ward with her kid and husband. Seeing this was when I actually realised that the best things in life are unplanned and unexpected. And this feeling was something else altogether, completely priceless, indescribable in mere words!