Normally, in Kerala families of the 80s and 90s, many of the children followed their parents’ footsteps in the choice of profession. A doctor’s son becomes a doctor, engineer’s son becomes engineer and so on. There are several advantages in this as the experience and contacts of the parents can be used by the children, if required. Of late, this trend is being changed as many children choose their profession based on their talents and information they collect from other sources including teachers and internet. In our campus, for many children their first choice was engineering, except a very few. Very few parents were inclined to object to it as engineering was not a bad profession and unemployment was not as bad as of now, due to the mushrooming of the engineering graduates particularly in the self-financing sector. Our son was also in the same boat as many of his friends were trying for admission to engineering after their pre-degree course.
But, as our daughter had already got admission to
engineering and having a doctor in the family was one of our long-cherished
wishes including my father and mother, I
tried to tell him how noble the profession of a doctor is and other advantages
of being a doctor. Once upon a time, medicine was my first choice too even
though I could not get admission for medicine, the reason being the
comparatively low marks I got for Physics in my pre-university. We tried to
bring up one of our younger brothers to join medicine but he ended up with
B.Sc.(Physics) as he did not get enough marks for admission to medicine. All these
stories were poured into our son slowly. As
he was as obstinate as our daughter, he agreed to try for both
medicine and engineering in the Kerala entrance examination. With this
in my mind, he had taken Biology
group for pre-degree with Mathematics as additional subject so that he becomes
eligible for both. Accordingly, he wrote the Kerala entrance examination in
1989 for both engineering and medicine. He came up with a good rank near about
100 for both medicine and engineering. First call for admission was from REC
Calicut and he had to decide as he was certain to get a first choice for
engineering in REC and also admission to MBBS in a Government Medical College.
He was also ranked for Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) and was called for
interview at Pune. But decided to opt out as he was certain to get admission in
Kerala. As some of his classmates were also called for
interview at REC, he asked me whether he can also go for the interview.
Probably, he had still some interest in joining engineering in the back of his
mind, but decided to oblige us by accepting our wish. He later told me that he
sat in the interview hall and when his name was called in turn did not go
forward to take admission. A few weeks later he was offered admission in Calicut Medical College (CMC) in
its 33rd batch commencing in 1989.
As we were watching
our daughter having a wonderful
time as an engineering student,
we slowly realized that
the first-degree course in medicine
was much strenuous in comparison.
After the first MBBS, he had taken
a room in the hostel, he rarely
stayed in the hostel. From him I understood that unlike
in engineering colleges,
after the first MBBS, there are
very few lecture classes except discussions in the medical wards and students had to learn by reading voluminous
medical books by
observation. On certain days, he used
to come home by 3PM or so tired
and hungry. His mum never allowed him to eat food by himself without taking
bath after coming from the hospital , I have seen her feeding him by hand until
his hunger subsides. Any way
he was
his mummy’s pet always. Occasionally,
he was grumbling how his sister was
enjoying while he is
struggling with his course. We used
to console him telling that the service
of a doctor to the society is much more
noble and valuable than that of an engineer. He completed his MBBS in 1994.
As those with MBBS alone was not able to go up in their
profession, I advised him to prepare for Post Graduate Medical Entrance
examination without going for a job in any of the private hospitals. As soon as
he got his registration from Travancore Medical Council, there was an
advertisement for Asst Surgeons in Kerala Health Services for which he applied.
While preparing for PG entrance sitting
at home, whenever he was feeling bored, he offered himself as a substitute
doctor in some of the small peripheral hospitals in and around Calicut. As some
of these hospitals had only one or two doctors, usually husband and wife, these
hospitals needed doctors for a few days when the regular doctors went on leave.
That way he could make some pocket money for his personal expenses too. The
very first one where he worked was in a remote village near Nilambur and was
recommended by his class mate and friend. He was very happy to work there as he
loved the natural scenery around. The hospital offered him tasty food for all
the 5 days he worked there, but at the end of the period, the administrator
said they will send the remuneration by money order. He returned home and the
payment was never made in spite of his request to his class mate who
recommended the hospital to him. So, the first job he did was really service
with no remuneration, typical of a self-less doctor!!!
He wrote the very first All India Medical Entrance
Examination after passing out which was held in February. After the
examination, he came home and when we asked him he said the examination was
difficult. After a few months, we heard in the News that results have been
declared and will appear in the Newspapers next day. As we did not have much
hope, his mother gave us food and slept off early, but we, my son and myself
did not sleep. The first bus coming from Calicut to Mokkam used to bring the
Newspapers at 2AM and we managed to get a copy of the paper from the paper boy
and found that he has been ranked, though not very high. We were talking loud
between us and laughing when my wife got up and was still lying down pretending
to sleep. Our son went up to her and told “Mum, I have been ranked”. She was
happy but chided him “ You naughty, why did you tell me a lie then
that the examination was difficult?”. He said coolly “Mum, I said the
examination was difficult, but not for Me”. Everyone laughed at his quick wit.
Since his rank was a bit low, and his first choice was
Paediatrics or General Medicine, he was offered Diploma in Paediatrics in
Calicut Medical College as he was not very keen to go outside the state where
he must have got admission for MD or MS. He joined the college and was happy
with his work enjoying his job with the young children. His only complaint was
“I can manage the children, infant or toddler, but not the mothers with them”.
Along with his PG studies, he prepared for the Kerala Medical Entrance and when
the results were announced after about 6 months, he had secured a reasonably
good rank 32 in the examination. The selection was in
Thiruvananthapuram and when his turn came he found that all seats for MD in
Paediatrics and General Medicine had been filled and the only MD seat available
was for Radiodiagnosis at two colleges. He grabbed the only seat available in Calicut
Medical College. At that time this branch was not very much in demand but of
late it became a highly preferred specialization. Moreover, the
drudgery of the work is also less in this speciality with no night calls like
the ones for gynaecologists or general physicians.
He can work and relax in peace after work at home and enjoy his favourite music
or cinema. He could also overcome the inadequacies
in the department by
visiting internationally acclaimed websites
of radiologists
like Radiological Society of North America (www.rsna.org), Royal College of Radiologists (https://www.rcr.ac.uk/) etc as he had been
introduced to internet and we had
arranged for a net connection at home. Of course, the facilities for
teaching Radiodiagnosis in Calicut was not adequate as no CT or MRI was available
at that time and diagnosis was based on the X-ray and Ultrasound only in the
beginning or based on reports from private scanning centres. By the
time he was in the final year, a spiral CT was purchased and commissioned by
Kerala Health Research and Welfare Society (KHRWS) and as he was conversant
with computer usage, he learnt to use CT quickly and could help his colleagues
and even some teachers to learn how to use CT. He also did a wise
thing along with his MD, wrote the examinations for the Diplomate of National
Board (DNB) which is globally accepted as a post graduate qualification in
medicine unlike MD of Calicut University and came out successful.
As he was preparing for his final examination
for his MD, he got his appointment order as Asst. Surgeon and was asked to join
the Govt. Hospital in Calicut Beach. He joined the hospital and applied for
leave for 2 months for writing his examination. His former teacher in
Radiodiagnosis was on deputation to this hospital and he was completing his
term soon. He told him that when he re-joined after the leave, he will be able
to take up his position. But unfortunately, when our son reported
for duty after his examination, he was posted in the casualty where his
specialization was not required. The post vacated by his teacher was taken up
by someone with no specialization but with
influence in the Directorate of Medical Education. As he did not
want to forget what he learned in MD, he joined a private hospital in Calicut
as Radiodiagnosis expert and started his career. As he was interested in a
special branch of radiology called Interventional radiology, he moved to
another private hospital in Calicut where some work was being done in this
connection.
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