I was sure I wouldn’t get any sleep the night before D-day. I was preparing to face the most sleepless night ever. Everything I thought of that evening seemed to relate to some exam I had write – the CPD (Continuing Professional Development) – a new term for CME. From insomnia to gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), from  gamma-aminobutyric acid to  Benzodiazepine receptor agonists(BZRA), and further on to nonbenzodiazepine receptor agonists - thought to be producing fewer adverse effects (i.e., ataxia, anxiolytic, myorelaxation properties) than to  nonselective BZRAs, and the most hyped cognitive behaviour therapy ….. I could go on and on that evening.

Hell…! The waiter at the dingy hotel beside beach resort at Goa served a dinner extra high on carb that night, and all I could think of was the darn  FDA warning against consumption of Slimming Beauty Bitter Orange Slimming Capsules due to containing undeclared sibutramine! But … that herbal green tea extracts (at least 250 mg of active catechins per day) was associated with modest weight loss in few short-term trials was some comforting soporific! Good Lord!!! I couldn’t remember anything any further… I seriously went nuts that evening.

I crashed to sleep at 11 p.m. that night and surprisingly had the soundest sleep I had over the past few months. I can’t explain how it happened. Had the waiter concocted a la Passiflora incarnata- a Passion flower dosed with some tincture and fermented grape juice? Or had he simply popped a sleeping pill into my aquafina water?  

As I walked into the hall that morning and admired my seat facing the sea-shore, a lightening warning awakened me! Oh yes… everything that I did in those few months was now down to the last 6 hours. I thought it would be the longest 6 hour period in my life! But … what an irony – it felt like 6 minutes! As the invigilater opened the seal of the packet, I could notice his ‘intension tremors” and my mind raced to recall its differential diagnosis – cerebellar ataxia…multiple sclerosis, Parkinson…? Well … I settled for the most likely one – alcoholic – as traces of ethanol blew past fresh sea breeze!

Out came the papers and boooom…!! The clock started closing in on the first 3 hours. The community medicine and internal medicine was rather easy and I began to think of the falling standards if this was designed to be a cake-wake. But the next Ob-Gynae was like a tight slap across my face. I guess they had to make good the damage after all. Those three hours whizzed past like a storm.

Smiling away to glory I walked down across the ground to catch the anxious face of my counterparts who were in the race with me. I was taking mental pictures to try and analyise how their papers must have been, because everything seems to be written on a persons face after a torturing session of CPD.

After a satisfying meal, that I was sure wouldn't put me to sleep I walked back to the GALLOWS to play the next innings. No wickets fell in the first and I was all pumped up for the second. The Paediatric section was a goggly – I had to play a defence game. I feasted on the Therapeutics and Surgery sections, but committed silly mistakes in ticking NSAID for prevention of acute gouty attack instead of colchicine and didn’t know what was “Hesselbach's triangle” – only knowing distinctly having read about “Hasselback's Potatoes” in a cookery book. I guess everyone has got their own limit of lousy mistakes. So I let it go of those few petty marks. Done with those last 3 hours I felt like a soldier who finally survived in the battle of Waterloo.

All thats left now is to wait and watch what'll happen. Now all that is left to figure out which is the lesser of the two evils...The CPD Exam or the newly recommended Maintenance of Certification for Family Physicians (MC-FP) by some health organisations over here. That, my friend, will only be deciphered by the end of … I know not when! … Peace to All.