A Portrait of a Medical Generation

Classmates

The Profiles

Meet the 204 classmates. This is our shared history, starting from the day we entered medical college in July 1973.

Roll No. 101

Dr. Manohar Kanadia


General Practitioner  ·  Nagpur

On 9 September 1979, the day Manohar Kanadia opened his private clinic in the Lakadganj colony where he had lived for 23 years, he charged his first patient two and …
Roll No. 102

Dr. Tapash Kumar Saha


Pathologist

Tapash Kumar Saha has spent his professional life looking through a microscope — first as a student of pathology at Government Medical College, Nagpur, then as a teacher in Malaysia, …
Roll No. 103

Dr. Ajit Jadhao


General Practitioner  ·  Jalgaon Jamod

The road to Jalgaon Jamod, when Ajit Jadhao first rode it in 1980, was not much of a road at all. To reach the villages around it — Satpura range …
Roll No. 104

Dr. Vandana Kamdar [Khanolkar]


Community Medicine Specialist  ·  Kollam

The first girl from the class of 1973 to marry did so on 19 December 1977 — before she had taken her final MBBS practical examination. Vandana Kamdar married Ajay …
Roll No. 105

Dr. Dilip Gohokar


Haematologist  ·  Nagpur

The blood disorders that Dilip Gohokar first encountered as a resident at GMC Nagpur in the late 1970s were, by any measure, death sentences. Leukaemias and lymphomas were managed with …
Roll No. 106

Dr. Dhulip Singh Tajne


General Practitioner

Dhulip Singh Tajne entered the world with a bit of local history behind him. Born on 12 May 1955 in Nimboli, Dhamangaon, he is the scion of a family that …
Roll No. 107

Dr. Ramesh Prabhakar Mundle


Physician  ·  Nagpur

When Harsha Sheorey's scooter met a truck during the final MBBS examinations in the late 1970s and he spent six months convalescing — depressed, his study momentum gone — it …
Roll No. 108

Dr. Harish Baheti


Physician  ·  Amravati

In January 2014, Harish Baheti was admitted as a patient. He had suffered an acute coronary syndrome — the same event he had spent three decades treating in others. He …
Roll No. 109

Dr. Sharad Jaitly


Cardiovascular Diseases, Nuclear Cardiology, Internal Medicine, Echocardiography

A Honeymoon with the ECFMG Devmani recalls it with a dry, affectionate wit. Two weeks after their wedding in Delhi, Sharad appeared for the ECFMG examination—and passed. “The honeymoon clearly …
Roll No. 110

Dr. Sudhakar Dhakite


Public Health Specialist  ·  Bhandara

Sudhakar Dhakite is a son of the soil, literally. Born in Narkhed—a town that sits ninety kilometres northwest of Nagpur—he was raised by a farmer. In those parts, you learn …
Roll No. 111

Dr. Padmakar Somvanshi


Physician  ·  Amravati

On his birthday, Padmakar Somvanshi does not accept gifts. He accepts blood. For nearly four decades, he has organised donation camps on 15 July each year, and the rule is …
Roll No. 112

Dr. Rajendra Phadke


Radiologist  ·  Pune

The thesis Rajendra Phadke wrote for his MD in Radiology was on the two-bath development of X-ray film. It was 1982. The technology that would eventually make that thesis a …
Roll No. 113

Dr. Alka Naik (née Desai)


Surgeon  ·  Bhusawal

She had already spent five years putting other surgeons' patients to sleep when she decided she would rather be the surgeon. "I always wanted to be a surgeon," Alka Naik …
Roll No. 114

Dr. Sujata Bhalerao (née Sawangikar)


Primary Care Internist  ·  Cupertino

The senior physician at Worcester Memorial Hospital, Dr. Peter Levine, watched the young intern from Nagpur. It was her first day in the Medical ICU—a place of hissing ventilators, rhythmic …
Roll No. 115

Dr. Chandrashekhar Jambholkar


Paediatrics  ·  Nagpur

The morning cycle ride to GMC Nagpur in 1973 was a small daily formation. Manohar Kanadia set out from Kamal Chowk. Gagan Panjwani joined from Jaripatka. Chandrashekhar Jambholkar pedalled out …
Roll No. 116

Dr. Pramod Mahajan


Nashik  ·  Nashik

The village of Khiroda sits 30 kilometres from Bhusawal in the Jalgaon district — small enough to have a school, a primary care centre, and not much else. The son …
Roll No. 117

Dr. Rajendra Kokate


Physician

The telegram arrived on 7 July 1973 — Rajendra Kokate's birthday. His parents handed it to him in Dabhadi, a village near Malkapur in Amravati district, and the news inside …
Roll No. 118

Dr. Dilip Tikkas


General Practitioner  ·  Nagpur

In September every year, the Central Government Health Service dispensary where Dilip Tikkas worked held a Hindi Week, and with it came a music competition. Dilip had taught himself to …
Roll No. 119

Dr. Pradeep Desai


Anaesthesiologist  ·  London

Pradeep Desai will tell you, without much prompting, that he has made more catastrophic decisions than most of his batchmates and recovered from all of them. He says this with …
Roll No. 120

Dr. Rajiv Garg


Physician  ·  New Delhi

For 17 of the 24 years Rajiv Garg spent at the ESI Hospital in Noida, the hospital was two kilometres from his home. He has mentioned this fact with a …
Roll No. 121

Dr. Subhash Hatey


General Practitioner  ·  Akola

In Medshi — a village of perhaps a few thousand people on State Highway 204, 46 kilometres from Akola — a schoolmaster named Hatey raised his son to know two …
Roll No. 122

Dr. Sanjay Gadre


Ophthalmologist  ·  Rajkot

"I met the right people, at the right places and at the right time, and that has made all the difference." Sanjay Gadre chose Rajkot because it chose him back. …
Roll No. 123

Dr. Chandrashekhar Meshram


Neurophysician  ·  Nagpur

In November 2014, at the main auditorium of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, Chandrashekhar Meshram was installed as National President of the Indian Academy of …
Roll No. 124

Dr. Anand Patil


General Practitioner

Anand Patil never came to the reunions. He felt, he had told SP Kalantri, like a stranger among old friends. The years in Gadchiroli — the long hours in a …
Roll No. 125

Dr. Deonath Nimje


Physician  ·  Bhandara

Mundhari is a village in Taluka Mohadi, 46 kilometres north of Bhandara, in the rice-farming belt of eastern Maharashtra. Deonath Nimje was born there to a farmer, grew up in …