Re'writing' the odds | From writer’s cramp to NEET-PG success | Dr. Nithin Krishnan

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:10]I could not do this for 3 years.

[00:00:19]Being a doctor, writing is everything. be it exams, clinical case sheets, patient notes, descriptions, everything. My hand just stopped doing that.

[00:00:38]I initially thought that it was just a part of you know the anxiety that a first year medical would be experiencing and whenever I hold my pen I was not able to write even a little. So that uh experience was so traumatic that I started exploring other options so that I have to regain my normal way of handwriting. I started decided to go back to my childhood days and I brought a four-line notebook uh sitting daily for some 30 to 45 minutes writing alphabets from A to Z.

[00:01:21]Hi, I am Dr. Nitan Krishnan. I have secured an all- India rank of,554 in the INICT and 3,834 in the NEPG 2025 examination. Maro was my only resource of preparation for this competitive exams. I did my MBBS from government medical college Tali and the first year started and I was exactly where I wanted to be. The first year was perfectly going good and it was a time for our university exams. On the last day of our university exam uh when I was able to start writing something went wrong. I was not able to hold my pen properly.

[00:01:59]When I was about to write, I experienced a cramping pain uh in my hand that was radiating towards my neck. And I initially thought that okay, it was mainly because of uh the exam anxiety and later the condition keeps on worsening. And whenever I start to write, I experienced the similar pain and I went to a consultant uh neurologist in my college and I was diagnosed to have a writer cramp. I initially thought that it was just a part of u you know the anxiety that a first year medical would be experiencing but whenever again I started to write I'm experiencing the similar thought of pain. So I went to my hometown and a consultant uh the neurologist and moment disorder specialist and they also confirmed that uh I'm suffering from a task specific donia called as writer's cramp. I went to the top doctors who are specialized in movement disorders from as Jimmer Nimhans and finally I ended up uh with an expert at Sri Chitra Institute of Medical Science and Technology uh in Truantum and he said that as of now um the only option that is available to treat this is the botinum toxin injection and I went for an initial test dose followed by a main dose but uh that doesn't bring any uh improvement in my condition and that was actually one of the worst phase of my MBBS life. So I started exploring the various options uh that will help me to cope up with my university exams and I appeared in front of the medical board of my uh university and my medical college and they have allotted me a scribe who can sit near me and who can help me write whatever I am telling. The problem uh which I faced at that time was to tell uh dictate the spelling of each and every word uh the Greek, Latin all the medical terms that we studied in microbiology and pharmarmacology and especially telling the organisms named like klepsiala, pneumonia, stenotonus, malttoilia. So all this pose a severe challenge uh while writing the exams. So that uh experience was so traumatic that I started exploring other options so that I have to regain my normal way of handwriting. I started decided to go back to my childhood days and I brought a four-line notebook uh sitting daily for some 30 to 45 minutes writing alphabets from A to Z um day by day so that I can uh get back my old handwriting and uh I can cope up with my upcoming uh exams uh in a much easier manner and many doctors suggest me uh to start practicing in my left hand but at that time I was 20 21 years old and uh unfortunately um I developed the similar symptoms in my left hand also. So I was in a way to find out other alternatives that can help me to cope with my college internal assessments and my university exams. And that was actually how I uh found an alternate way of uh holding pen uh between my uh middle and uh index finger uh like this. So this is how I used to hold my pen and uh started writing during my third year. Initially uh it was uh a bit uh cumbersome task because the speed of writing was very um slow and I used to get you know pain uh after writing for some time and before every uh university exams or before my every college exams I used to take paracetamol that will help me to uh relieve the pain which may which I may experience while writing and um so that's how I actually um go for my theory exams. So the one uh most important challenge which I uh face while preparing for the university exams was like how I have to prepare for my university or my profit exams because like uh unlike other students I couldn't you know I can't write more pages and pages so I just want crisp and precise contents and that's how uh and that's the point where uh maru makes uh an impact uh in my preparation journey. I started watching uh the first lecture on community medicine by Dr. mukm and uh followed by that END and afterthalmology lectures and watching mar videos was really very helpful during that short period of time. We just have uh 3 months um uh in my third year for our university exam preparation because it was post the second wave of COVID and I completed all my third year um Maro lectures during that stipulated time and that crisp and concise marrow content really helped me to uh clear all my uh university exams. I decided that okay I should uh clear the competitive exams in my first attempt and that's how actually I decided to uh start my PG preparation from the beginning of my final year and the one problem which I initially felt while watching uh medicine lectures where uh I feel like okay I was uh lacking some uh foundation uh like uh I feel like I was poor in my anatomy um tissue then pharmacology and pathology.

[00:07:16]So I then decided to go for an integrated approach that is whenever I start watching the cardiovascular system or you know the medicine lectures I simultaneously I will go for the anatomy physiology pharmacology and pathology of lectures of the corresponding topics. So I uh always like uh reading uh the topics in an integrated manner rather than reading in isolation. So that actually really helped me for a better understanding and that also literally helped me to uh retain things for a long period of time. So during the first five to six months itself I covered nearly 50 to 60%age of my medicine lectures along with most of the topics in my first year and second year um prop exam subjects.

[00:07:53]So by the end of my final year I completed watching all the marrow video lectures. Um and uh with that marrow nodes and uh with that marrow lectures only actually I appeared for my university exams. Again uh the problem uh what of writing in my university profams was a challenge I faced at that time.

[00:08:15]Immediately in the first few months of my uh internship. I decided to give the UPSC CMS exam and uh Maro was my again only source of preparation and I just revised all my final year subjects and I started solving custom modules and multiple choice questions from chapter wise question bank modules in maro but uh internship in my college was a bit hectic so I couldn't always get time to solve every chapter MCQ so I decided to go for daily 50 to 100 question custom modules from selected and high yield in previous year topics and uh that year in the month of July I appeared for the UPSC CMS exam and uh with Maro itself I was able to get um very good scores in the CMS exam the the theory part followed by that I got selected in the personality test also and towards the end of that year I got an already rank of uh 104 in the UPSC CMS exam and that was that gives actually a very good confidence and uh since I was not able to practice much uh MCQ during my final year or during my beginning of my internship. I have decided to give uh aggressive uh mini test and subject wise test. So by giving uh subject wise test I was able to understand the strength and weakness in my every subject. Then I go back to my notes. Then I started watching uh the revision videos of that particular subjects which I club with uh the MCQ discussion videos in Maro and the revision nodes uh of the marrow. So when I used to club the MCQ discussion videos along with the revision notes within a very short period of time during the last months of internship especially you know when we have very less time for our preparation daily uh this revision videos and MCQ discussion videos gives me an exact idea which are the topics I have to focus uh what are the areas I have to uh be very thorough what are the topics to ignore because preparing for competitive exam it's not like uh reading everything from the textbook it's reading what is needed and uh multiple revision on the same uh topics and I started giving grant test towards the end of my internship. So initially I started giving grant test like once in 15 days and in another 10 to 15 days time period I used to review the grant test. I used to assess subject twice uh what are my strength what are my weakness which subjects I am good at and uh which I was bad at. Then I go back to the main notes. I used to solve custom modules on those uh week topics uh daily and in the next 10 to 15 days I used to continue the same uh schedule and later I increased the frequency of giving grant test like once in 10 days to once in a week. So see grand test gives actually the exact uh simulation of our final year uh final competitive exam. So uh the more uh grant test you give that gives you an extra confidence because grant test not just assess your uh knowledge or your uh content uh your uh level of content in a subject. It also tells you it will also help you to assess how you are effectively tackling every question within that particular stipulated time. For example, you'll just have 30 to 45 seconds for a question and in that uh 30 to 45 seconds how you are able to answer that question. It may be a smart guess. Okay, it may be a factual question whether you are attempting all questions, whether to skip that question. So many things are being analyzed in the grand test. So I strongly recommend to give grant test as early as possible. There is no cut off criteria like okay once you finish this much subjects only you should start giving grant test. No, if you just finished three to four subjects still you can give grant test. Rakkesh was my most favorite marrow faculty. Uh the reason is of course he is the medicine faculty. First of all I love medicine.

[00:11:54]Then second thing is he has a different uh style of teaching and during my initial days in my final year itself it was the marrow medicine videos I actually uh started watching. I gave my uh national need PG mock and the national INAC mock uh before uh my main exam. And in national need PG MO uh I got around 165 questions correct and in my main exam it was around 161 questions correct and in my int mock uh the number of correct answers were nearly 154 and in the original exam it was 149 questions correct. So the national need PG and dionic city mo of maro gives me actually an exact simulation of the main exam and that actually helped me to refine my revision strategy uh in that next 1 to 1.5 months uh time frame and I completed around two complete revision of my uh main notes uh along with my revision notes and MCQ discussion videos uh during my two months. Uh the other one thing which uh was found very helpful uh during the final uh preparation was because you know we have nearly 800 uh60 plus question bank modules in maro. So it is very difficult to revise the whole of the question bank uh during a uh especially during the last few months of exam preparation. So the best thing which I have found was schema. So in the last two months daily I used to practice all those high yield schema topics which has been repeated in the INIC and in PG in the last 10 to 15 years and that was really very helpful and during my routine uh solving of the question bank modules I used to bookmark the various multiple choice questions in various grades and uh along with my daily custom modules practicing I used to also do a separate custom modules of nearly 40 to 50 questions based on the bookmarked MCQs because the bookmarked MCQs are the questions that we feel okay something different or that's not routinely covered in our marrow lectures. So when we practice those uh bookmark MCQs that will give an extra edge uh during our main exam also. So that was how actually my internship was going and I was preparing very effectively for many PJ and NCT exam on one side and the other side I was writing uh with an altered grip. One fine day morning uh there was a cardiology consultation in one of my posting department and he just asked me to uh take a sheet of paper and write the orders that he was telling. I took the pen hold the pen normally and I was continuously writing without any pain without any uneasiness like the way which I used to write 3 years back and he went uh after the consultation and I just rewind what actually happened that day from that moment till date I'm able to write perfectly normal my handwriting is perfectly normal I didn't experience any pain or uneasiness while writing And that actually that was actually how I regained the original way of writing.

[00:14:52]There are few people who actually supported me to the core during uh my tough phase in the last 3 to four years.

[00:14:59]The first and foremost are my parents.

[00:15:00]They literally don't know why it happened to me. But despite of that every day they used to give me a hope that one day I will be able to write normally. Right from taking me to consultation to the doctors, right from giving me mental support, right from giving me uh the tips uh to relieve anxiety and everything uh they were literally supporting me day by day till even till date they have been supporting me throughout First year for internship at the end I was able to secure a rank of,554 in the INIC and 3,834 in the NEP PG20.

[00:16:25]2025 exam through my NEPJ rank 2025 I got my dream branch emergency medicine and I joined as a junior resident in department of emergency medicine Government Medical College Thanandavaram to all the NEPJ and INIC aspirants out there who is preparing for the upcoming exams I just want to say this I have walked through something I couldn't see the end of and I came out the other side if I can you too can you just have to