Recognition is a strange thing; it feels good for about five minutes before it starts asking questions you didn\u2019t plan to answer. In May 2008, the institute nominated me for the Best Teacher Award of the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS), Nashik. It was a significant honour. In a state crowded with medical colleges, being singled out as the “best teacher” is no small compliment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But my satisfaction was short-lived. I soon learned that my close friend and colleague, Dr. M.V.R. Reddy, the Head of Biochemistry, had also been considered. The rules were simple and rigid: one institute, one nomination. I could immediately see the awkwardness this would create\u2014two friends vying for one title, leading to forced smiles, careful conversations, and that invisible comparison in the staff room that no one admits but everyone feels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reddy wasn\u2019t just “good at teaching.” He made biochemistry\u2014a subject most students flee from\u2014feel alive. He possessed that rare gift of making enzymes and pathways sound like a story rather than a syllabus. So, I wrote to the Dean and asked him to withdraw my name, stating plainly that Reddy should be the nominee. An award is never worth disturbing a friendship that had quietly become family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On July 30, 2008, MUHS announced the winner: Dr. M.V.R. Reddy. I felt genuinely happy. I wrote a congratulatory email to the faculty and meant every word. Watching him receive the award, I didn\u2019t feel I had “lost” anything; if anything, I felt lighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bureaucracy, however, has stamina. The Dean tried again the next year, and then again. Finally, on February 22, 2009, I sent a direct email declining the nomination permanently. I explained that I did not consider myself an exceptional teacher\u2014only an average one\u2014and that singling out one person often obscures the quiet, collective work of a faculty. It wasn\u2019t false modesty; I have simply always believed that teaching is a team sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n Fourteen years later, in September 2022, I was in Chandigarh visiting my daughter Amrita when I received a call from Dr. R.B. Kalamkar. He was my senior from the 1971 batch in Nagpur, someone I had worked alongside during my residency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Association of Physicians of India (API), Vidarbha Chapter, wants to honour you,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My reflex was ready. No, no\u2026 please don\u2019t\u2026<\/em> I had practised this refusal for years. But then he added a line that stopped me cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It is the Dr. B.S. Chaubey Award.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Chaubey\u2019s name has a way of straightening your spine, even decades later. He was my mentor, my examiner, and\u2014on some days\u2014my nightmare. He shaped the way I think as a physician. His standards were brutal, but they were never casual. Over the next few days, calls poured in from friends and colleagues\u2014Dr. Viresh Gupta, Dr. Nikhil Balankhe, Dr. Deshpande\u2014all urging me to accept. This was not a distant university selecting names from a file; this was my own fraternity. These were people who had watched me grow older, slower, and greyer, yet still turn up to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I said yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n The ceremony took place in Chandrapur. My former teacher, Dr. S.M. Patil, handed me the citation while the audience applauded. The words were generous\u2014too generous, if you ask me. When my turn came to speak, I had no desire to list achievements or sound like my own obituary. Instead, I took them back to Ward 23 of GMC Nagpur, circa 1980.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was a first-year resident then. I had admitted a young patient with leg weakness and a distended bladder\u2014a classic case of acute transverse myelitis. But standing in front of Dr. Chaubey, my brain went blank, the way it does when fear hijacks reason. When he demanded the diagnosis, I blurted out, “Guillain-Barr\u00e9 syndrome, sir.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He didn\u2019t shout immediately, which would have been easier. He went quiet first\u2014the dangerous kind of quiet. Then he pulled back the sheet, pointed out the signs I had missed, and turned to Dr. Patil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Patil,” he said, his voice cutting through the ward, “God save this student. Poverty of thoughts and bankruptcy of ideas.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The audience in Chandrapur laughed when I narrated this. I smiled too, but inside, I remembered exactly how it felt that morning: the hot flush of shame, the dry mouth, and the desperate wish to disappear behind the case sheet. That sentence stayed with me for years\u2014not as an insult, but as a warning. That day I learned a simple truth: in medicine, ignorance is not harmless. It can hurt people. The fact that it embarrasses you in public is merely the smaller problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n When I looked at the award later, I didn\u2019t see a trophy. I saw a long road. I saw myself refusing a nomination in 2008 because I didn\u2019t want an award to stand between friends. And I saw myself accepting one in 2022 because it carried the name of the teacher who once scared the nonsense out of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The MUHS award would have been just a certificate. The API award felt like something else entirely. It was a full stop. And, in a quiet way, a return to Ward 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Call I Couldn\u2019t Refuse<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
Ward 23 Returns to the Stage<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
The Circle Closes<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n