Reflections on Medicine and Life by Dr. S.P. Kalantri
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 … Read more
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 USAID’s help, it might have perished in infancy—struggling to survive, gasping … Read more
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 letters—𝙋s. I arrived in the summer of 1982, stepping into a world where initials carried more weight than full names, where the … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more