Reflections on Medicine and Life by Dr. S.P. Kalantri
This morning, my friend Ramesh Mundle called to inform me that Dr. H.C. Attal, former Professor of Medicine at GMC Nagpur, passed away yesterday at the age of 86. He taught us medicine during our residency at Government Medical College, Nagpur, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He led one of the six medicine … Read the essay
Exactly a week ago, I landed in Indore to visit my elder sister. But my heart tugged in another direction—toward someone I had to see. Dr. Karunakar Trivedi. That morning, I dialed his number. His voice, gentle and warm, hadn’t changed with time. He welcomed me without pause. By noon, I was standing before Trivedi … Read the essay
“Yesterday, I took three drops of Sarpagandha—morning and evening. Walked and talked. Still, my blood pressure was 196/ 112. But there’s no cause for worry.” “I took three drops of Sarpagandha—morning and evening. Walked. Talked. Still, my blood pressure is 196 over 112. But there’s no cause for worry.” A letter. Dated October 28, 1941. … Read the essay
This afternoon, while leafing through the brittle pages of a dusty medical journal, I paused. There it was—a paper from 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘎𝘢𝘻𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦, dated August 1942. The author: Dr. Sushila Nayar. I blinked. Could it be 𝘰𝘶𝘳 Sushila Nayar? The physician who walked beside Gandhiji and founded 𝘩𝘦𝘳 MGIMS? The young doctor who became … Read the essay
“Enough is enough,” thundered Dr. Sushila Nayar, her voice cutting through the hall.“No more free PG seats for MGIMS boys and girls. If they want postgraduate degrees, they must first serve two years in the villages.” She meant it. In 1969, Dr. Nayar had built MGIMS on a dream: to raise doctors who would live … Read the essay