SP Kalantri

Obituary

Dr KV Desikan

Dr K.V. Desikan,  a legend in leprosy, passed away on 23rd October, 2022. He was ninety six. In a career spanning more than sixty years, Dr. Desikan invested considerable effort and time trying to understand the mystery that shrouds leprosy. He began working in an area few others cared about. Leprosy, in the early fifties, …

Obituary

Dr BC Harinath

The passing away of Dr BC Harinath evokes so many memories. He came to Sevagram in 1970, fresh with a PhD in Biochemistry from the USA. Sevagram was a small village then and young Harinath had trouble adjusting to Sevagram. The first batch of medical students had arrived only a year ago and Dr Harinath …

MGIMS Sevagram

RIP, USAID.

USAID, born in 1961, is no more. Its fate was sealed by President Trump, one of the many sweeping decisions he made soon after ascending to power. Why should this news bother MGIMS or Sevagram? It should. MGIMS was born in 1969, but without USAIDโ€™s help, it might have perished in infancyโ€”struggling to survive, gasping …

MGIMS Sevagram

The Ps…

The corridors of the Medicine Department in Sevagram in the early 1980s pulsed with an odd sort of rhythm, a melody not of footsteps or hurried whispers, but of letters. Not just any lettersโ€”๐™‹s. I arrived in the summer of 1982, stepping into a world where initials carried more weight than full names, where the …

MGIMS Sevagram

Holi and Dr. M.L. Sharma

Holi in Sevagram always brings back memories of Dr. M. L. Sharmaโ€”the man who taught pharmacology with flair and led MGIMS through its formative years, shaping the college well beyond its adolescence. In the classroom, Dr. Sharma was a performer. Anyone who learned pharmacology from him will tell youโ€”it wasnโ€™t just a subject; it was …

MGIMS Sevagram

What is in a Name…

In todayโ€™s world, naming a baby is almost a competitive sport. Parents meticulously curate lists, debate meanings, consult astrologers, and even conduct online polls before settling on the perfect name. But in the 1970s, in the sleepy yet bustling medical campus of Sevagram, things wereโ€ฆ different. Dr. Shashi Prabha Ahujaโ€”better known as Dr. S.P. Ahujaโ€”was …

MGIMS Sevagram

A Tale of Two Cities

In the summer of 1969, a small Wardha village witnessed the birth of an institution that would shape generations of doctors. Sevagram, once home to Mahatma Gandhi, now nurtured the MGIMSโ€”where medicine met service. But miles away, in the heart of Madhya Pradesh, stood another institute, older yet equally steeped in purposeโ€”Gandhi Medical College (GMC), …

MGIMS Sevagram

The Prize that Meant the World

It was the winter of 1991, and I was a young faculty member in the Department of Medicine at MGIMS, Sevagram. Life was simple, our means were modest, and our ambitions were shaped more by circumstance than by grand design.  One day, a handwritten letter arrived from the President of the Indian Medical Association, Nagpur. …

MGIMS Sevagram

The Prize that Meant the World

It was the winter of 1991, and I was a young faculty member in the Department of Medicine at MGIMS, Sevagram. Life was simple, our means were modest, and our ambitions were shaped more by circumstance than by grand design. One day, a handwritten letter arrived from the President of the Indian Medical Association, Nagpur. …

MGIMS Sevagram

The Road that Built Sevagram

Yesterday morning, during my rounds at Sevagram Hospital, I observed a flurry of activity along the road connecting the main gate to the Medicine department. Workers were laying hot tar on gravel, the air thick with the sharp scent of asphalt as rollers smoothed the surface. By evening, a transformation was complete: a gleaming black …