There are these two things to understand if your goal is to become a scholar

Before we begin to understand the two things, remember this:

“It is all in the books, but it should stay in your mind, or else what is the fun of it, and why do you learn for the sake of it? Enjoy it.”

I was watching Bollywood’s Filmfare Awards in the 2000s, though I do not remember exactly which year. The compering by Shahrukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan that year was exceptionally perfect compared to the performances delivered every year by different actors over the years. They stand out, so perfect and attractive in their body movements and speech. Everything was just thoroughgoing. Quintessential!!

With such history, I wanted to find out my talent. At that time, I was a student at a medical college, and I aimed to become a meritorious scholar of that university. I discovered my talent, which is to keep writing about medicine throughout my life, how I learn, and the relationship my mind has with books.

However, there is nothing sensual about how I relate to books. In fact, my talent is boring and keeps me engaged in reading and writing. I have to work extra hard for reasons I won’t disclose until I muster the courage to discuss them here. That apart, there are still certain transparent things that scholars should understand from an academician who now has some 11 years’ experience in the fields of medical teaching and the healthcare industry.

The two things:

1. When you keep arriving at the same wrong postulation every time you think about the concept, someday explore the concept because there is an element of truth in the fact that your books, AI, or teachers are ignoring or discarding it to leave you confused about your intellectual abilities, and you swear at yourself that why are you so sure of the wrong concepts that you have formed during your building years.

Example: I always consider omega-3 fatty acids and MUFAs as the same thing functionally and write or teach statements like, “MUFAs need a background of omega-6 to function adequately to reap beneficial results in cardiovascular diseases.”

If you search AI for this statement, it would be a refuted concept outright, and let me tell you that I have authored a book chapter—Diet Therapy in Preventive Cardiology.

The background of this erroneous statement has a missing link after all—MUFAs can be easily synthesized in the body without essentially consuming them if we eat adequate omega-6 fats, which are essential fatty acids that are acquired from food sources, and omega-3 fats, which are also essential to have, both in the ratio of a 5-10:1 combination.

There is a lot to this concept, but my specialization does not include revising biochemical concepts in detail, although I have read about them.

Ultimately, MUFAs like oleic acid are converted to mead acid in the body, through elongases and desaturases, in the absence of essential fatty acid intake. Mead acid is an anti-inflammatory omega-9 fatty acid. Omega-3 PUFAs, like docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentanoic acid, are beneficial for cardiovascular and diabetic health and are, in turn, synthesized from precursors like omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid from food. The common link is elongases and desaturases that work upon substrates to produce MUFAs or omega-3 fats. The two have shared receptors, and consuming both helps in balancing their quantities to function similarly.

2. The second thing to understand—

You achieve only what you can in life. So, one should not stress about the fact that “I cannot perform like them.”

But I give good lectures, even though my body language is funny and shakes a lot, like a Kathak dancer. There is improvement, though, and I enjoy teaching, but it isn’t very similar to what the entertainment industry people can do to engage the audience.

What they cannot do is remember every word in the books read by them some 20 years ago, test their authenticity now, and add on at least 2 more points than the previous year to enhance the content of their lectures.

This is interesting for me: the boring hard work on a Sunday morning to create content for students and other people who read and strategize so much in the field of public health, which causes it to become the most interesting thing to learn in the foundational years of any health-related subject and for people beginning their journey to become doctors.

So, understand these things before rating yourself down or completely giving up while thinking that what you are creating is boring and not useful because you want to be a scholar of at least your subject and still consider yourself incomplete as an academician, which is the reason why you keep coming back to it.