Dr (Mrs) Lata Patil —Samir Patil’s (MGIMS Class of 1993) mother—died this morning of metastatic cancer in a private facility at Nagpur after fighting malignancy for more than a year. She was 71. She is survived by her husband, Dr.SM Patil—the well-known physician and two children- both doctors.
Dr (Mrs) Lata Patil taught me Medicine during our GMC Nagpur days. Jovial and good-humoured, she and Dr. SM Patil always stood by the residents during the stressful days of residency in Medicine. Dr. BS Chaubey—the department and unit head during my Medicine residency—was known to be an authoritarian clinician whose very presence in the ward evoked awe and terror among his faculty and residency. Day in and day out, Patils knew how to protect Medicine residents from Dr. Chaubey’s fury and designed their innovative methods to bring some calmness in our terror-filled lives. Mrs. Patil lived life to the fullest and later rose to head the Department of Medicine at GMC Nagpur. Although she climbed the highest rung of the academic ladder, she didn’t change at all. Her ward rounds were remarkable for being brief and focused, and she made it a point to play a prank and make her juniors laugh during the rounds. After retiring from GMC, Nagpur, she did outpatient practice in Dr. SM Patil’s private clinic. She continued to wear her heart on her sleeve- and by a clever turn of phrase almost always succeeded in mitigating the patient’s misery.
Mrs. Patil’s death is a personal loss to me. Little did I know that one day I would have a fortune of mentoring her son. In 1993, Samir joined MGIMS and later decided to follow the footsteps of his parents. I was his mentor and guided his MD thesis.
May her soul rest in eternal peace.
