Mona's India Journey - 2023 part 3 - I-AIM (the internship)
A few people have asked about the hospital where we are doing our internship, and I am super excited to share about this.
The internship is the final module of the Āyurvedic Doctor program I have been working on for the past two years through Boston Āyurveda Inc, lead by my teacher Dr. Anusha Sehgal.
We are at a hospital outside of Bangalore called I-AIM, the Institute of Āyurveda & Integrative Medicine. You can find their website here.
Their mission is: “To demonstrate 21st-century models for safe, effective, affordable and replicable healthcare services, aimed at wellness, prevention and disease management, through well-researched applications of Traditional Health Sciences judiciously integrated with modern sciences and disseminated through high-quality education.”
I-AIM was established in 2011 as a 100-bed hospital meant to support and illustrate the potential of integrated healthcare services, research, and education. They are affiliated with TDU, the TransDisciplinary University (which is down the road, and time permitting, will be another post).
Each morning we leave the hotel at 8 am and take a bus to the hospital. Turns out even a lot of the doctors get bussed in too.
Here’s a pic of all of us on the bus (we have dubbed it the “party” or “disco” bus) on our way to the hospital. The bus even has shag carpeting on the dashboard. It’s quite awesome :)
I-AIM is about 10 minutes from where we are staying. Here are some pictures of what it looks like when you arrive…
This is from the road as we get to the property.
This is the main entrance to the main building.
This is all of us interns on our first day!
And here are a few pics inside the hospital. It is unlike any hospital I have been to before.
On the right, you can see the door to outside from the picture above. This is the main waiting area for patients, along with the shrine and offerings.
The hospital has three (3) floors - ground/main, then two (2) levels above. It is very open so the fresh air moves freely throughout.
There are many departments, both Āyurvedic and complementary (like physiotherapy, yoga, and dentistry). For the internship, we have been partnered up, and each team of 2 interns does a four-day rotation in each designated department.
This is my internship partner Philippa Anderson. Philippa is from NYC in the US - you can check out her website here.
The first part of the day is to intern in the department we have been assigned to. We do this from when the doctors’ start seeing patients (anywhere from 9am to 10am) until lunch (around 1 or 1:30pm).
Our first rotation was in Kaya Cikitsa, which translates to ‘Internal Medicine’. It’s like general medicine. We saw both in-patients (staying at the hospital for a time) and out-patients, and the cases included things like skin conditions like dermatitis, digestive issues, hair loss, high blood pressure, etc. We were learning from Dr. Shashidhara. He is one of the most compassionate, patient, and kind health-care providers I have met. He reminds me a lot of Dr. Sonya back home.
This is his picture from the I-AIM website
When you come in through the door to Dr. Shashidhara’s office.
The examination table and station for hand washing. This shows a typical office/examination space at the hospital.
Our second rotation was in Shalya Tantra, which translates to surgery and surgical procedures. Once again we saw both in-patients (staying at the hospital for a time) and out-patients, and the cases included things like low back pain, hemorrhoids and anal fissures, head wounds, diabetic foot wound healing, urinary disorders, and hernias. We were learning from Dr. Neelambika. Dr. Neelambika is precise, direct, and skillful. We watched her perform many procedures like agni karma (using both heated metal instruments or heated plant medicines to alleviate back pain) and kshara sūtra (the use of medicated threads to heal anal fissures).
This is her picture from the I-AIM website
We begin our next rotation next week.
Patients are either in hospital (if necessary and affordable) or out-patients, and they consult the appropriate doctor for their condition. Sometimes they will consult more than one doctor if they have multiple conditions. Consultations are typically 20 to 30 minutes each. From the consultation, the patient is advised of the next steps: often diet and lifestyle recommendations are made, sometimes they need to have procedures done, and other times they need Āyurvedic medicines.
For in-patients, depending on the case and conditions, the medicines are sometimes made fresh.
The centre table in the medicine making room.
You can see the big vats for the fresh kashayas (decoctions), as well as the fresh dhumas (like incents).
The sides of the room are filled with large pots over flames to make the fresh medicines.
They use both dried herbs and…
Fresh herbs from the property…
Which they intend to grow and cultivate in sustainable ways. Ayurveda believes strongly in only using what you need and always leaving some for others and the Earth.
And for the out-patients who will be using medicines at home, there is also a pharmacy of pre-made Āyurvedic medicines.
For us interns, it’s like being a kid in a candy store! Access to all the formulas and Ayurvedic medicines!!! (and remembering the whole “only take what you need, leave some for others who also need”).
After a busy morning of rounds, then it’s lunch time. This is what lunch looks like… hint: there is a lot of focused eating and not always a lot of talking!
This is the room we have for our little group. Their lovely kitchen staff makes us a lunch every day. It’s super yummy. So is the chai. I might leave India with a chai problem that is not unlike my chocolate one.
After lunch, we have PK (pañca karma) demonstrations. PK is the method used in Āyurveda for bio-purification. It is a phenomenal system to support the maintenance of health as well as the reduction (and sometimes elimination) of disease. For this, we are guided by the remarkable Dr. Sreeja.
This is her picture from the I-AIM website
Access to the PK rooms is from inside the hospital, however, the rooms are accessed from an ‘open air’ area so there is fresh air moving through the rooms as well as the whole hospital.
Each PK room has a small shrine to Dhanvantari, who is the deity of Ayurveda.
Each PK room has a bathroom with shower (not shown here), a steam box (back corner with the slanted aspect), a droni (the big table made from specific types of woods that are naturally anti-septic), and a counter with sink with running water for cleaning.
We have been exposed to so many PK procedures including vamana (emesis-based bio-purification), nasya (medications administered via the nose), jaluka (leech therapy - there’s a short video below if you’re OK with leeches), sveda (versions of sweat therapy from poultice based to oil based to steam-based), snehana (oil therapies)
After the PK demonstrations, we might go back to meet with our doctor to get more information on a case, to have a discussion, or we might debrief with each other and Dr. Anusha.
We typically leave the hospital after 5pm, and it looks something like this…
If you are standing at the entrance and turn 180 degrees to leave, this is what you see.
When we get back to the hotel, we write up our cases for the day, and prepare questions for our doctors for the next day. It’s a lot of work, and at the same time, really amazing to see the work the doctors and the hospital are doing to help the people (from far and wide!). It is powerful and inspiring.
And every once in a while, something quite fun and unexpected happens like this…
The story behind the monkey is that Philippa and I were outside preparing for our rounds and we found this guy roaming about trying to find food. Then dogs started barking and this happened…
And it’s even funnier because everyone is warned…
I hope this gives a sense of our internship time. We are all blown away that we are at the halfway mark already… Whoa!
Chandra fixed the comments, so feel free to leave your comments below!
Thanks for reading! More to come. Be well :)