He should have been in the class of 1972. A university examination scandal changed that.
“I should have been in the 1972 batch,” Satish Deshmukh explained, “but the 1972 mass copying in the Nagpur University took a toll on me. I was left behind.” He could have taken a seat at Indira Gandhi Government Medical College, Nagpur. But he wanted to be a GMC Nagpur alumnus. He sat the examination again, accepted the two percent mark deduction for a second attempt, scored 71 percent, and got his seat. In 1973 he entered GMC Nagpur — a year later than planned, exactly where he wanted to be.
Thirty-One Years in ESIS
He was born to a farmer in Mangrul Dastgir, Amravati district, and went to several Nagpur schools before completing his premed at Dharampeth College of Science. In the hostel, he and Vishnu Masram were nicknamed Gilli Danda — Satish was tall, Vishnu was not. The physics of the children’s game matched the partnership.
After MBBS, he did his rural internship from Tiosa, 115 km west of Nagpur, alongside interns from the 1974 batch. In 1982 he joined the Employee’s State Insurance Corporation and remained for 31 years, moving through four ESIS hospitals across Vidarbha: Akola (1982–90), Amalner (1990–94), Jalgaon (1994–96), Akola again (1996–2008), and Nagpur (2008–13).
He is one of eleven students from the class of 1973 who served in ESIS hospitals — institutions that offered steady, affordable healthcare to industrial workers and their families in an era when private medicine was rapidly becoming unaffordable for salaried employees. At each posting, he looked after close to a thousand listed families, provided outpatient services, and referred employees to the medical board for disability assessment. It was not glamorous work. It was necessary work, and he did it for three decades.
He retired on 31 March 2013. Since then he has ticked off a different kind of list. He had already visited Badrinath, Kedarnath, and Vaishno Devi. In June 2018 he completed the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra — a physically demanding pilgrimage that requires stamina and preparation that most people his age do not attempt.
He is, as he put it, enjoying post-retirement days.