There is a particular kind of doctor who turns up in small-town Maharashtra and simply does whatever needs doing. He is not a specialist; he is something rarer \u2014 a doctor who has learned, out of necessity and temperament, to be everything at once. Panjabsingh Chavan is that doctor. Over 34 years in government service, he delivered babies, removed appendices, set bones, administered anaesthesia, and conducted 500 post-mortems. He performed close to 30,000 tubectomies. He ran hospitals, managed wards, and filed the paperwork that no one else would touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Over my 34 years of career in public health,” he said, “I have done almost everything that is required to run a hospital.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chavan was born in the district hospital, Yavatmal \u2014 the very institution he would one day serve. His father was a headmaster; discipline and application came early. He went through primary, middle, and high schools in Vitholi village, Taluka Manora, District Washim, then took his pre-university at Shivaji Science College, Amravati and his final premed year at Amolakchand College of Science, Yavatmal. In 1973 he entered Government Medical College, Nagpur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After graduation, he interned at Rohana primary health centre and the district hospital, Akola. He did a house job in Surgery but resigned \u2014 money was short and the salary was not. He turned instead to public health, a choice that would define his next three and a half decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His career traced a quiet arc across Yavatmal district, rarely mentioned in newspapers and rarely rewarded with prizes. He began as a medical officer at Lakhandur, 63 km south of Bhandara, spent five years at General Hospital Yavatmal, moved through primary health centres in Savargaon and Ner, returned to General Hospital Yavatmal, and gradually climbed toward administrative roles. Medical Superintendent of the sub-district hospital at Pusad. Resident Medical Officer. Civil Surgeon. Women’s Hospital, Darwha. Women’s Hospital, Yavatmal. Dufferin Hospital, Amravati.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He retired in October 2012. As an in-service candidate, he had earned his DCH \u2014 Diploma in Child Health \u2014 from Indira Gandhi Government Medical College, Nagpur in 1990, writing a thesis on dwarfism under Dr Hussain. He was 34 years old, already a seasoned practitioner, sitting examinations with men and women a decade his junior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“My accountability to the government was the highest priority,” he said. “Everything else was accorded a back seat.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What made him effective was not ambition but a steady, practical commitment to the work itself. He is one of those rare government doctors who did not feel diminished by administration \u2014 who saw the running of a hospital as a calling in itself, not a distraction from medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following retirement, Chavan started private practice in Yavatmal. He also returned to the soil. He owns 10 acres of farmland at Manora in Washim district and another 10 at Kinwat in Nanded district. He has considerably reduced his clinical practice. His two sons, both doctors, continue in medicine \u2014 one an ophthalmologist at a district hospital, the other a paediatrician in private practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chavan married on his birthday, 23 October \u2014 an anniversary that coincides exactly with the date of his birth, a domestic symmetry that few achieve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"