Hello

My name is Zoravar Singh Kalkat. I’m a medical doctor focused on traumatology and orthopaedics, but my research interests run broad. My current active research is:

Along the way, I also learned to program. I had been interested in it on and off for years and then I spent some time learning under a mentor (many thanks to @noxpardalis).

Since then, it’s been an incredibly useful part of my research, especially for cleaning and analyzing data, automating repetitive tasks, creating visualizations, and even lighthearted stuff like making research questionnaires nice.

You can reach me at contact@zoravar.eu if you want to collaborate on research!

My Philosophy

One should not limit oneself to a particular understanding of the world. One should develop the mind, body, and character to explore reality at one’s pleasure.

In Life

I have always been uncomfortable with the idea that the limits of my identity and expertise should become barriers. While my early attempts as a teenager to branch out were not particularly fruitful, each attempt taught me which techniques work and which were worth discarding. Through increasingly rewarding pursuits over the years since I have gradually developed an evolving framework for training new capabilities.

Often my impetus to devenlope a new skill starts when my curiosity meets with a practical need. One of the things I enjoy doing the most is fixing a small problem, and in the process taking on new challenges and achieving the required of level refinement in a new set of skills.

I start by deconstructing the problem into its smallest components and then examine solutions that already exist for useful elements. One rule I try follow here is to limit myself to one new domain when taking on a new challenge. This allows me to tackle unfamiliar challenges without running into the problem of making every aspect unfamiliar simultaneously. Then I approach the solution starting with the simplest components first, and slowly building up.

In Learning

Languages have become one expression of my approach. I have worked toward professional proficiency in German (currently Goethe B2, progressing toward C1) and conversational Latvian through day-to-day practice.

My German learning has been largely self-directed. I initially broke down language acquisition to a few domains - style of expression, phonetics and grammar. I experimented with different learning methods, starting with spaced repetition, but found it rather dull. I tend to avoid relying on it in academic contexts for similar reasons.

Eventually, I settled on a combination of methods that suited me better. I use two podcasts, one about history and the other investigative journalism, to expose myself to natural expressions, sentence structures, and a wide range of phonetics. Alongside this, I worked through Deutsch für Besserwisser (German for know-it-alls) up to B1 to establish a grammatical foundation and formalise the structures I encountered in listening. As my proficiency has improved, I have added German translations of several Murakami novels to my reading list. Their concise writing style and my familiarity with the original works make them a natural next step-up in complexity.

In Medicine

I approach clinical skills in much the same way. For example, I visit a clinic on weekends where a small group of us are allowed to practise using an ultrasound machine. I broke down sonography into three domains - indentifying specific structures and features consistently, scanning the general area of concern, recognising pathological changes. Before each visit, I read about the area we intend to focus on. During the session, I work on identifying the relevant anatomy from different angles, gradually developing the familiarity and coordination needed to acquire these views reliably. I then practise imaging a series of structures while approximating the pace of a clinical setting. Then at the end we return to each saved view and discuss how to differentiate pathological changes.

I take a similar approach to trauma and orthopaedics. I try to build my understanding from the underlying principles of fracture healing and management, then follow those principles through to their practical implications. For example, I want to understand how mechanical signalling influences healing, how that informs the choice and configuration of fixation constructs, and how working length affects the movement permitted at a fracture site. From there, I can examine situations in which a construct may not provide the desired mechanical environment, and how more recent developments such as dynamic screws and plates aim to address some of these limitations.

Being able to trace that line from theory to practice is important to me. A deeper understanding of the underlying principles not only informs treatment decisions but also helps me explain them more clearly to patients.

Programming

I use nixOS as my primary operating system and build tools primarily in Rust.

Hobbies