Pallab Maulik: Removing stigma and improving mental health access in disadvantaged communities

11/11/2017 0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

As a child, Pallab Maulik would play with make-shift medical kits, observing his doctor father and nurse mother treat patients and work shifts at the hospitals in Nigeria and India. He followed the family tradition and graduated from the Calcutta Medical College in Kolkata.

He did his residency in Surgery, but soon realised that it wasn’t his strength. “I was drawn to the `Mind’ so I switched to psychiatry”, says Dr Maulik, who trained as a psychiatrist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, before going to do his post-graduation in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK) and then a PhD from the John Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore (USA).

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Vivekananda Jha: Need to fix the system to ensure no one is excluded from the Right to Health

11/11/2017 0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

A prolonged brush with the healthcare system during his high school years steered Vivekananda Jha towards medicine. Multiple visits to the doctors, uncertain diagnosis, rudimentary care and the prolonged physical, mental and financial stress of ailment, made him determined to pursue medicine as a career.

He grew up in Bihar, and graduated from the Patna Medical College, before moving to the prestigious Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh to do his post-graduation in Internal Medicine and Nephrology.

“Nephrology offered the possibility of extending a patient’s life even after they had developed advanced end-stage organ failure by providing them with dialysis or kidney transplantation, whereas with other organs that was not the case in the late 1980’s”, says Dr Jha, who hails from a family of teachers, and so he is the only doctor “on-call” in their entire extended family.

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Jeyaraj Pandian: The silent epidemic of Stroke needs attention to prevent long-term disabilities

11/11/2017 0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Since childhood Jeyaraj Pandian aspired to be a doctor. His paternal grandfather was a Legalised Medical Practitioner, as they were called before India’s independence. Whenever, he visited his ancestral home Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu, his grandma would show him his grandfather’s medical kit, intact with a stethoscope, syringes and basic first aid equipment, which was securely kept as a treasured heirloom.

He chose to follow his childhood passion and enrolled in Tirunelveli Medical College (Madurai Kamaraj University), Tamil Nadu. He then completed his residency from the Christian Medical College (CMC) in Ludhiana [Punjab] and did his post-graduation in Internal Medicine. It was while doing his Master’s that he did a thesis in Neurology and that really kindled his interest in the discipline.

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