I was a staunch opponent of television serials and soaps; I believe they corrupt the mind, pollute the soul and dull our intellect. But not anymore.
It was an unforgettable day by any measure; I was waiting for this day for the previous five years of my MBBS course. For the first time, my name tag clipped to my starched white coat carried those two magical letters preceding my name, clearly proclaiming that now I have become a real doctor, with legal permission to treat a patient all by myself. With a dash of ego in my head, touch of pride in my heart and a matching new stethoscope on my shoulders, I reported to the department office. I was promptly directed to see the professor of medicine, the unit head, and asked to join the rounds.
During the ward-rounds in the next two hours, the professor asked me questions, not covering clinical medicine but topics of basic science such as anatomy, physiology, microbiology and pathology. To most of them I remained silent; whatever little I tried to answer turned out to be hilarious to most of them. I don’t know why, but my brain just refused to access the data that I had meticulously learned just a few years back. My inflated pride took a needle prick when at the end of the ward-rounds the professor commented, “I really wonder how you guys get through your MBBS.”
I was always a good student with consistently good marks in basic medical science. But how could I manage to forget most of it? At that time, I was not aware of the ‘Zeigarnik’ effect.
In 1927, Bluma Zeigarnik, a psychiatry resident in Berlin, went to a local restaurant with her friends. The waiter came to take the orders. As each one of the dozen students placed their orders, the waiter confirmed each order with a nod and went back to the kitchen, without ever jotting down the orders. When the food and drinks came in, the waiter served each one of them correctly.
Zeigernik was wonder-struck by the waiter’s ‘super-memory’. The group ate, tipped and thanked him and left. A little later, Zeigernik realised she had left behind her scarf on the restaurant table, and went back to collect it. She found the ‘super-memory’ waiter and asked him about her scarf. To her surprise, the waiter failed to recognise her. When she enquired about his ‘super-memory’ and their earlier orders, he casually answered, “Oh, the orders? I just forget them after I serve.”
The Zeigarnik effect indicates that once a task is done, the short-term human memory forgets it conveniently; like the final examination. Put differently, if you want to remember something, don’t finish the task.
Apparently it might look illogical, but examples are everywhere. The television soaps, the magazine serials, the film clips, all stop abruptly with an element of suspense. The Zeigarnik effect makes sure you switch on the television, or pick up the weekly, at the same time next week, without fail.
‘Snow-white’ silky hair set on top of a ‘sand-dune’ wrinkled forehead, ‘ground-glass’ eyes and a ‘uprooted’ oral cavity: made her look older that her case-record age of 75. She came in with a massive heart attack, unconscious. Oxygen, morphine, saline, the intensive-care protocol started to roll.
The hiss of the compressed air of the ventilator, the beeping monitors and the inaudible prayers of the family ended after 72 hours when things started to brighten up.
The next morning she slowly opened her eyes and looked around, a little confused but still alert enough. I held her hand and told her she was now better and out of danger.
Once she understood that she was in hospital, she asked, “What day of the week is it, doctor?”
“Thursday,” I said. “You came here on Saturday.”
“Oh my god,” she started sobbing. I knew that all this was but the result of her stress and anxiety related to her condition.
I did not realise how wrong I was.
“You would go home in another couple of days,” I said.
“No, no, doctor, it’s not that,” she paused.
“So I have been here for five days now. Which means I have missed out on 20 episodes of four different television serials”! “Serials?” I had run out of words, stumped and caught behind all at the same time. All the nurses started laughing. Here we are worrying about life and death, and she talks about TV serials.
Stuff to look forward to
“Please understand me, doctor,” she said in a soft voice. “My husband has passed away; the children go out for work and I stay alone at home. My only entertainment is the TV set and the serials. I have no one to talk to. So I live, laugh and cry with the serial characters and eagerly wait to know what is going to happen next. It is this interest in waiting for the next episode that keeps me alive. Now that I have been in the hospital for five days, I have lost the thread of continuity. You may not understand, but now I have very little else to look forward to.”
That’s exactly what Bluma Zeigarnik theorised. But what I learnt a different lesson: “Our junk may be someone else’s diamond.”
Dr. Tiny Nair is a senior cardiologist practising in Thiruvananthapuram. tinynair@gmail.com
