TEACHERS WHO INSPIRED ME

Hi friends,

I started writing during the initial phase of this lockdown and now we are in my 25 ^th post.

Thanks to all my followers, subscribers, parents, siblings, teachers, family and friends for all your encouraging and lovely comments which keeps me writing..

Being the silver jubilee of my blog, I thought of making it different and special..  

I would like to start with a quote by Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan whose birth anniversary is celebrated as teachers day. 

"The true teachers are those who help us think for ourselves."

My teachers taught me to question, to think, to reason out in  learning the subject. I feel writing about them is special and a way to show my gratitude to them. Each and everyone is unique and I have equal respect and  admiration for all my teachers, starting from my school teachers, my MBBS teachers, my MD teachers (including my senior residents and seniors), my teachers at AIIMS, Delhi and my teachers at CMC, Vellore. I can write a book sharing my experiences with all my teachers and  so I am restricting to one teacher at a time, in one post. Thats why the post is titled  as  "TEACHERS WHO INSPIRED ME". I will be subsequently writing posts about each and every teacher who inspired me and every such 25^th post will be about one of my teachers.

As I mentioned previously, I am basically from Puducherry and I did my MBBS and MD from JIPMER.

So this post is about a MBBS teacher of mine, who was also my MD teacher.

He was very popular among MBBS students. During our MBBS days, we used to celebrate hostel days, girls' hostel day was popularly known as Curie day and boys  LOHA day (Lister, Osler, Harvey and Aschoff). For those who are wondering as to what this curie and LOHA are, these are the names of hostels in JIPMER and we call them as House and not Hostel eg.Curie House. During these hostel day celebrations, we conduct polls for the best teacher and he was always  the best teacher amongst second MBBS students. I liked his classes and never had missed any of  his class. He was strict as well.

I am, further, sharing my experiences during my MD days of this teacher who inspired me then and keeps inspiring me..

My first year junior residency

I joined MD Pathology in JIPMER in 2012. We had rotation postings for 3 months each in histopathology, hematopathology and cytopathology. I was posted in hematopathology in October, November and December of that year and during this posting I started reporting with him. We also had one month compulsory casualty postings for all newly joined postgraduates and I got posted there in October. So, my first month of hematopathology posting went in the casualty posting. Thus, November 1, 2012 was my first day in hematopathology posting and the initial few days went in getting oriented to what happens in the lab.

We had slide seminars every Monday 8 am to 9 am. A few unknown cases were given to the postgraduates and they were discussed during this hour. So on Monday, November 5, we had hematology slides given by him for discussion. There was a slide of thalassemia for discussion which had many nucleated RBCs (nRBCs) and I didn't know that when nucleated RBCs are there we have to correct the Total leucocyte count as given by the automated cell counter. I also had no clue on how to calculate the corrected total leucocyte count. I got ticked off nicely from this sir, he told one month is over and still you do not know the basics also. Of course, I felt bad, not knowing the basics and although I wanted to say that its only five days that I  have been to the section,  I could not say anything at that moment.

Then around 12 noon, he called me and asked if I could sit with him for writing reports on peripheral smear forms. He could not write as his right shoulder was injured and he was on a cast. That time he told me Sorry, I forgot that you were posted in casualty last month and this is your first week of posting. He further said, you could have told me that, couldn't you? He had one tray of peripheral smear (20 slides) for reporting and he taught me each and every slide. I still remember, there was a slide of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, and he taught me how to identify myelocytes and metamyelocytes in that slide.

Till that point, I had great fear with him. But that moment, when he called me and told sorry and most importantly he taught me the slides and it was like compensating for missing my one month reporting with him, my respect for him grew immensely.

This incident also motivated me to learn faster and work more to  compensate for loss of my one month hematopathology posting.

Another incident I want to mention here, happened during my second year.
I got interested in hematopathology,since my first year and one important reason was this professor about whom this post is…

This professor is a quiz master and I was also interested in quizzing. So,we (this professor and I ) conducted a notice board quiz which was open to all every week. We would put up a few questions on the notice board of our department and the person who gave the correct answers the earliest was given a gift. He gave me the money to buy gifts. One day, I put a quiz on the notice board outside our lecture theatre, called Pasteur Theatre. Just like our hostels, our lecture theatres are also named after famous medical personalities. It was a notice board with glass doors and a wooden frame (something like the picture shown). I had pinned the questions more towards the right end of the notice board as there were other notices also, and after closing the door, the right side  of the page was not visible.

                                    Picture taken from Google images, indiamart.com

This professor had noticed it. He walked up to the lab and asked me what is the point in putting the quiz if it is not seen clearly. He told me go and change it immediately. He told me whatever you do, try to do it perfectly. These words got imprinted  in my mind so much, that after that episode whatever I do, even the smallest of works, I try to do it the maximum perfectness I can. Thank you sir for inculcating this in me.

He was quite a strict teacher, but am sure whoever was scolded by him, would have realised at some time or the other, that those scolding were for their own good. He was also a friendly and caring teacher. 

He has inspired many students and I can name a few, who took Medicine and then clinical hematology as their specialty because of his MBBS classes in hematology.

The people from JIPMER would have known by now, who I am talking about.

He is Dr.Debdatta Basu, we call him affectionately as Basu sir. Few words for people who don’t know about him. He did his MBBS, then his MD Pathology and Senior Residency from Maulana Azad Medical College(MAMC), Delhi. He joined as Assistant Professor in JIPMER in 1995 and now he is the Professor and Head of department of pathology. 

One of the reasons for my interest in hematopathogy is Basu sir. 

This was Basu sir's comment on my becoming an Assistant Professor. Thank you so much for your lovely comment sir. But I want to say here, that whatever heights I reach, I will always be your student sir and I feel happy about that.  

Whatever we become and even as  we are old, our parents see us like kids only. I feel it’s the same with teachers also, however you grow in career, I am still the same student whom you taught all the nuances of seeing a slide during my MD days sir. 

You will be remembered by all your students  for inspiring us.

I end with one of my favourite quotes by Dr.Abdul Kalam, 

"Learning needs freedom to think and freedom to imagine, and both have to be facilitated by the teacher." 

I thank all my teachers for giving me the freedom to think, to question, to imagine and for facilitating my learning. One most important reason for where I am in my carrier now is all my teachers and  I thank them wholeheartedly. I am always happy and proud  to be their student.

See you all with subsequent posts on special occasions about the teachers who inspired me.  

                                                                                 Written by Dr.Priyavadhana B