This morning, I hung up my shoes. I stepped down as a medical superintendent of the MGIMS hospital. Twelve years ago, I became a reluctant MS of the hospital. For a physician-teacher who had not had a single day management experience, the initial days were unnerving, to say the least. Here I was—catapulted straight into …
Sevagram
Gulab Singh Baghel
Sevagram General Store: The One-Stop Shop for Village Life In Sevagram in the mid-seventies, the medical college was just six years old. There were neither big showrooms nor fancy shops, no cinemas or luxury shopping malls. Only one bus would ply between Sevagram and Wardha; a cycle rickshaw would take an hour and a half …
Wasudeo Deodhe- The Sevagram Man Friday
Wasudeo. Does this name evoke a memory of a person who you met and spoke to during your Sevagram days? You surely would recall him—this man- Friday from the dean’s office knew the art of getting the impossible done. He spent four decades in Sevagram (1969- 2007) and is still remembered for his work. I spoke …
What is in a name?
“What is in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Shakespeare’s famous quote is a cliché – a tired, stale phrase or idiom that, because of overuse, has lost its impact. Names matter. A name identifies us. It does so much more: it is our public face. Over the last …
Ulhas, the writer
Some physicians are known to write creatively, taking up pen alongside their stethoscopes. Ulhas Jajoo belongs to that creed. A Writer-physician or a physician-writer. This week, Ulhas had his four Hindi books published. He writes about the people he admired, and those who shaped his life and times. He also picks up thoughts and narrations …
Palliative care at Sevagram
Two years ago, Dr. Sankha Mitra—an oncologist who is keen to reduce inequity, injustice and alleviate healthcare-induced poverty— had visited Sevagram. He spoke a sentence that was an eye-opener for the audience. “In India, the poor die in agony in neglect; the middle-class die in agony in ignorance and the rich die in agony on …
Repairing the heart defects
One in 200. A chance that a mother would deliver a baby with heart disease. And some of these heart defects are serious enough to warrant early intervention. A piece of good news is that some holes in the heart, stenosed valves and abnormal connections between the great arteries can be repaired without open heart …
Ashutosh Raghuvanshi
Ashutosh Raghuvanshi. A shy, self-effaced boy, polite to the fault, travelled countrywide for almost three decades not only to become a cardiac surgeon but also to head some of the largest hospital chains in the country. He belonged to the MGIMS class of 1980. This month, much to his pleasant surprise, he found himself playing …
First cardiac Surgery at MGIMS
On September 4, Dr. Pankaj Pohekar, the cardiac surgeon and his team performed MGIMS’s first heart valve replacement surgery. He replaced two heart valves with mechanical ones. Govind (name changed) a 48-year-old farmer from Sindi (Railway) in Wardha district was recently detected to have a heart valve that barely opened and another valve that leaked …
Amrita gets a gold medal
How should a father react when his daughter achieves a distinction that is a dreamer’s delight? How does he control his emotions when he reads a message that not only has his daughter emerged a winner in an examination that is known to break many hearts but has also got the first rank in the …