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, …
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 …
From Healer to Healed
Friday, 26 January 2024. Republic Day. Dawn broke, quiet and cold. I woke up at 5 a.m., as I always did. Ashwini had taken a late-night flight from Pune, delayed for hours. His plane finally touched down in Nagpur at 3:30 a.m. By the time he reached home, it was 5. I was already at …
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 USAIDโs help, it might have perished in infancyโstruggling to survive, gasping …
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 lettersโ๐s. I arrived in the summer of 1982, stepping into a world where initials carried more weight than full names, where the …
A Lab, A Leader and A Legend: The Tale of Tukaram Gawande
In the late 1960s, a young man stepped off a dusty bus in Sevagram. Tukaram Sitaram Gawande had traveled over 200 kilometers, seeking relief from a stubborn fistula. Kasturba Hospital, known for its Ayurvedic treatments, offered hope. The cure worked. But Sevagram offered something more. He stayed. Fate, however, had its own script. In April …
Lessons That Last a Lifetime: Saying Goodbye to Dr. A.P. Jain
Physicians vary greatly: some prioritize art, others science; some are humble, others overconfident; some are bold, others cautious; some trust intuition, others data. Where did Dr. A.P. Jain fit among them? Nowhere and everywhere. He was art and science, instinct and intellect. He revered the power of physical signs but never dismissed modern technology. He …
Holi and Dr. M.L. Sharma
Holi in Sevagram always brings back memories of Dr. M. L. Sharmaโthe 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 youโit wasnโt just a subject; it was …
What is in a Name…
In todayโs 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 wereโฆ different. Dr. Shashi Prabha Ahujaโbetter known as Dr. S.P. Ahujaโwas …
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 MGIMSโwhere medicine met service. But miles away, in the heart of Madhya Pradesh, stood another institute, older yet equally steeped in purposeโGandhi Medical College (GMC), …
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. …
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. …