CHAPTER NINE : OUR PROFESSORS

“Do you know? you feel like a doctor only three times in your entire life ”explained dr.hemang acharya professor of medicine and my jijaji, when I got admission to PSMC “first, when it is your first day in your college, second, when you wear stethoscope in 2nd MBBS and third when you join internship!”

True. Really, how can you continually feel like a doctor when you are continuously and mercilessly bombarded by professors, tutors, exams and vivas? I mean, they just blast off your head with loads of information, that too when it is simply too hard for you to understand it. For instance, I remember dr. arya from deptt of psm tried to teach us clamydia, an organism somewhere between the bacterial and viral world, when no one from us even properly knew difference between virus and bacteria. that too, of course, in the very first lecture from deptt of preventive and social medicine!

Most of us were from gujarati medium and that too was the one of the problem. However I learnt English well before my entry to medical college. A bit proud about it, I remember, first time when I searched to tapavi’s home in ahmedabad, i asked about his address to a local young boy in English .he seemed annoyed, asked from where I came, and gave me proper guidance. After walking about a kilometer, ultimately I found out tapasvi’s place.

After a few days, in our hostel room, we were talking about gujarati angreji.

“You know neh, those who know little English behave like a fool some times. A few days back, one gujarati boy asked address of my house un necessarily in English to my younger brother Nimitt. I do not know who that comedian was!” not knowing the incident, tapasvi expressed his genuine views.
Oops! That boy i asked the address happened to be tapasvi’s brother! and comedian? Naturally-me!

“You are right” I said avoiding eye contact!

Most of the teacher professed in English as it was the language of instruction. However, every one had some peculiarity about their speech. For instance. Dr. mazoomdar, prof. of physiology, used to speak English keeping his lips tightly pursed. Initially for us, it was difficult to find from which part of body the sound was produced! He was fond of asking questions.

“Yes neha! (As he used to call me in the classroom)” and “kkhommon sense!” still ring in my ears

Dr haridas was teaching biochemistry. he was one of the best teacher i ever have met. No student could sleep in his lecture even at last bench.his speech was very much pressured one and he used the speak like a popcorn machine! –Phossphofrrructokhi nase……!

From anatomy, we had dr. danger wala, she had very good habit of going to root of medical terminology, explaining how easy the terms were. (umbo..etle shu?gada na paida na ara jya wachche bhega thayne, e upselo bhaag! Now you compare the central part of ear drum...). she used to teach histology and in journal she used to check the position of nuclei in the cell also, apart from other details. Naturally most of the students had to re draw the figures. From her teachings it became clear, English, as medical terminology was perfect. The Sanskrit professors, in fanatic try to convert these words for gujarati medium student made the same words more clumsy, messy and beyond reach for students to understand .I remember a name of a bone from my 12th std text book as parshwa pashcha kapali purkarnasthi! !

“Underline thousand times!” were the words heard thousand times from anatomist dr bhatiya. In viva, he used to ask the student to hold the specimen not only in anatomical position but also at the same height of the part in question in the student’s body. So one had to hold lungs near his/her lungs, kidney near his /her kidney and so on…!

Dr. raibaghkar from deptt of anatomy was a kind of good audio tape player. He had good collection of many tapes on the subject which routinely started at the start of his lecture and ended without any interaction at the end of the lecture. Occasionally, he used to stop the tape and asked question to us, may be because he might be suddenly realizing the whole herd of students sitting in front of him or to get some time to re arrange the tapes. Usually it was difficult to satisfy him with the answer.when no one could give answer he used to ask his favorite second question:

“Any one from senior batch?” this to usually followed by eternal silence from the audience made up of dumb students like me. most of the times he used to give the answer and sometimes not. but his tape would start exactly where he stopped!

How can I forget dr Nishith? Tall, fair, handsome speaking only needed words in the class, never giving more than 50%- 40% in vivas. Usually his lecture followed that of dr mazoom’s . mazoom sir never used to clean the black board at the end of his lecture.

Annoyed, dr nishith used to comment “this is like not flushing the toilet after using it!"

CHAPTER ONE: TRAIN TO PSMC

For me, it was very first chance to do everything all alone. i mean, i never had gone any where alone till that day. The challenge was not only to go but rather to stay and study MBBS at shree pramukhswami medical college for five long years ! the college was said to be a rural medical college, still to get recognized by the medical council of india. today, when i look back, it looks like a dream for me. how did i get in the MBBS?

though firstly,I never wanted to be a doctor because i hated mugging up biology as a subject. secondly, Physics always fascinated me. it was my first love.my childhood memories are full of play with magnets, lenses and paper airplanes. my dream was to be a physicist or an aeronautical engineer.can you really believe? i wanted to be part of indian space research program! but after my result of 12th std,things turned such way, i got an option of becoming a doctor. tinted with feelings of patriotism, i and my best friend shanti often had hot discussions as to what to choose and why.i remember standing on the road to our tuition class early morning spending hours in such discussions! believe it or not, my parents never even suggested as to what should i become in life.. they wanted me to choose a career whatever i liked.

from the discussions, i felt, deeper down in me, there was an urge to work directly with the people,to help them in their daily lives. i was always moved and fascinated with teachings and life of mahatma gandhi. mahatma was an unbeatable hero for me.(and he is even today). surely, he played his part to make me a doctor!

an engineer can work wonders for the people but could he ever have chance to touch the hearts of people directly? i guessed, it was only a doctor that could do so. i knew, a physicist could save and enrich lives of thousands by designing remote sensing satellite. but he would remain in office for most of the time away from the masses. so if i really wished to be helpful to the masses directly and to touch their hearts i ought to be a doctor. to be a doctor to save life was like becoming an angel.

i also remember some emotional, lonely and tearful moments thinking about people in need of medical help.there are only a few times in whole of your life when you are left alone with yourself.people say whenever you want to make any big decision of your life, follow your heart more than your brain. boys usually do not cry but imagination of people dying without medical help made me forget my gender during those moments.

thus, gradually my heart changed my mind in favor of becoming a doctor.of course, to get in the medical college was not sure for me! despite all my emotions, there was a trap. that was because, my merit number in merit list of gujarat state was near about 1000. there was no any pre medical test at that time. students, based on their merit of 12th std were given choice to choose either medical or engineering.My rank was a tricky one because total medical seats in the state were around 1000 at that time. so, it was not sure whether would i get admission in a medical college.

for admission process to be transparent,there was central admission committees- one for medical, other for engineering. students were asked to come of counseling on different dates according to their rank. after 12th std, when you know you were to get a good branch, definitely, you would feel something special.

when we reached the L D engg. college ahmedabad for counseling, there was huge crowd of parents and students. fate of all of us was to be decided that morning. we were taken to a big class room and were made to sit in front of a big black board showing details of seats already filled up and remaining in different medical and engg colleges of the state.the data was updated after each counseling.this was very helpful for all the parents and the students.

for me, as my elder sister neha studied mbbs at m p shah medical college jamnagar, it was my first choice. but damn! the college was full far before my turn! there was only one college that showed vacancy when i studied the black board - the pramukh swami medical college karamsad- a new medical college still to be recognized by medical council of india. technically, it meant, if you do mbbs from that college, you were just a medical graduate and would not be allowed to practice as a doctor out side gujarat. but who wanted to go out side gujarat? me? never. also, there was no facility of doing post graduation there. so what great difference would it make? i would remain an mbbs doctor only. fine. still, i would be a doctor at least!

my tension and heart beat increased as i saw last 2 mbbs seats remaining at psmc and some 50 odd students to go before my counseling! beat it, my dream seemed shattered! my next choice was mechanical engineering at shree birla vishvakarma maha vidyalay vallabh vidya nagar. i would at least be an enggg.i thought. there was tension.each passing minute appeared an hour to me! any of two students would choose to be doctor and the game would be over. but as the counseling progressed, those 2 magical seats remained untouched.probably no one from those 50 odd students wanted to take risk of joining a medical college that still was to be recognized by the medical council of india. if i wanted to be a doctor that was the only choice left for me.

lastly, my merit number was announced. 2 seats in psmc remained as it were before! my dream finally was to become a reality. i stood up.i was in zabba and pajamas. i was taken where the committees were sitting.I was warmly welcomed by the admission process team. the head of the committeemen was dr mankad, as some one told me. he had big spects and was looking at the list when i entered. i had not seen him before, but i could make him out because he was sitting at the centre.
"Yess young man!" he looked at me from his spects and gave me a huge smile." you are getting a medical sear at karamsad and a mech engg. seat at BVM vallabh vidya nagar. what is your choice?"
i really was so happy.without thinking for a second, i replied " medical sir!"

‘A doctor will never wear zabba pajamas..!”dr mankad smiled again.“you are getting seat at psmc karamsad is that ok?” i nodded yes. i never would forget dr mankad. any one could see love for students in his eyes.he was so caring even in that meeting of a few minutes.

soon the paper work was over and confirmation letter was given to me. bingo!i rushed outside to show it to my parents.

as I said, I was the second to board the train to medical, last was biren Gandhi…later on to be biru dada..! However I did not know, a whole batch, so called engg. Batch was to board the train after re shuffle.

So, there came the rainy day and I was stubborn enough to stop my parents to come with me to psmc as I wanted to face it all alone...
My train from bhuj to anand stuck up somewhere near nadiyad because of heavy rain. After a few hrs of disturbed journey I ultimately reached anand and karamsad.

After some clerical work, I went to doctors’ qtrs. Dr . nishith was the rector..a tall hansome military figure! He told that I had been given room in the big hostel[other than nursing] and names of my room mates were

Biren Gandhi
Tapasvi puwar..