India, Feb. 16 -- By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

The unseen hand of God or Destiny or Providence, or by whatever name we may choose to call it, has some very strange ways of playing with our lives. And, perhaps no one sees it at work, more often and more closely, than a practicing doctor like me. And, over forty long years, I have on more occasions than one, seen the twists and turns that it has given to the outcomes of medical treatment, which have left me amazed, perplexed, deeply grateful and sometimes deeply distressed too!

I am narrating here one such incident from my own life which I feel is worth sharing with my readers. I am talking of the time exactly thirty-five years ago, when I was working as a young, newly married physician, a...