2.21
Residency: The Mastery
Slowly, the craft became mine
Room 99 and making of a Resident
In 1980, the postgraduate residents of GMC Nagpur moved into a new hostel. It was modern, two storeys high, and stood opposite the Dental College—barely a hundred metres from our wards. For boys raised in the crowded barracks of undergraduate hostels, it felt like luxury. Each of us got a single room.
By destiny or design, I landed in Room 99, second floor. The number had followed me through every hostel I had lived in. I accepted it like an old friend.
The room was simple: a table, two chairs, a cot, and a small almirah. From the window I could see the road leading to the Dean’s office, with people moving in and out as if the world ran on files and signatures.
Communication in those days was a physical act. No mobile phones. The hospital PBX worked when it pleased. A single landline sat in the corridor outside my room. It rang with summons—“Bed 4 is gasping”—or, on happier days, news from home.
More often, the call came on foot.
If a patient worsened at night, a ward attendant—almost always a woman in a saree—would walk across, climb the stairs, and knock on the door. In her hand was the call book, a small notebook where the resident had to sign before running back to the ward.
It was a simple system. It was also an accident waiting to happen.
One night, Dr. Pande and Dr. Deshpande were asleep in the dormitory after a brutal 36-hour stretch. The attendant arrived and whispered into the dark, “Deshpande Doctor…”
Dr. Pande, half awake, heard his own name. He grabbed the book and scribbled, in the reflex of a resident who had seen too many arrests: Inject adrenaline and start cardiac massage.
The call, unfortunately, was not for a cardiac arrest. It was for the obstetrician—there was fetal distress.
Even now, I smile at the thought. Then I shudder.
Downstairs, the mess served food that tested both appetite and character. The dal was watery. The chapatis arrived shrivelled. The vegetable was usually potato, sometimes pretending to be something else. We ate because we were young, tired, and hungry.
For breakfast, we escaped to the Indian Coffee House. For twenty-five paise, we could get two fluffy idlis or a crisp uttapam. That was not breakfast. That was survival.
On Being a Donor
In those days, our blood was not only ours. It often became a resource for our patients.
I remember rushing to the blood bank, sleeves rolled up, ready to donate for a patient in my ward who was sinking and needed a transfusion urgently. I would urge the officer to draw quickly so I could run back to work.
And while the paperwork crawled, I would slip into the Sindhi canteen nearby. A hot aloo bonda and a cup of tea—my small reward for a pint of blood.
We were naïve then. We lived in a pre-HIV world. We did not yet respect the silent travellers blood could carry. We saw only the patient in front of us and felt useful, even heroic, for a few minutes.
Later, screening became strict and donation became safer—and rightly so. But I still miss the simplicity of those days, when a young doctor could save a life and feel satisfied with tea and a potato fritter.
A Father’s Love, Delivered in a Box
The MD curriculum is vast, and the list of recommended textbooks can frighten even the brave.
During one visit home, my father asked, “What books do you need?”
I wrote a list: Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, books on the heart, lung, liver, brain, kidney. I handed him the paper, unsure if he would even recognise the titles.
A month later, a heavy cardboard box arrived in Room 99.
Inside were the latest editions of every book I had written down—neatly packed, almost reverently arranged.
I was stunned. In those days, imported textbooks cost close to ₹4,000. My monthly stipend was ₹625. My father was a man of modest means, careful with money, the kind who counted every paisa in his business. And yet he had quietly spent what felt like an impossible sum.
I ran my fingers over the glossy covers and felt something tighten in my throat. It was not just a box of books. It was his faith, sealed with tape.
He never spoke of the cost. He never asked for thanks. He simply wanted his son to learn.
Even today, I cannot recall every chapter I read from those books. But I remember the box.
Slides Before PowerPoint
Before PowerPoint, a seminar was not something you “made.” It was something you crafted.
I was assigned a topic for journal club: Clinical Approach to Coma. I buried myself in Plum and Posner’s Diagnosis of Stupor and Coma, spending weeks trying to understand brainstem reflexes and cortical functions.
Then came the slides.
Somehow, I procured a pack of thick, pure white 8×8 inch cards from FACOR. I followed a strict rule: six lines per slide, not more than eight words per line. With a pencil and ruler, I drew faint guidelines. Then I wrote with a black sketch pen, slowly, carefully, trying to make each letter behave.
On the day of the seminar, I projected those cards with an epidiascope. As I spoke, I watched my teachers’ faces. They did not clap. Teachers rarely do. But I saw it in their eyes—a quiet approval.
That day, I learnt a lesson I have carried ever since: clarity on the slide often reflects clarity in the mind.
A Thousand Names
In 1980, the Department of Medicine at GMC Nagpur hosted the annual conference of the Association of Physicians of India. It felt like a task too big for us.
Nagpur was not a metropolis. Resources were limited. But the department mobilised like an army. Faculty, residents, paramedics—everyone worked day and night.
Dr. Ramesh Mundle and I were given a job that required stamina more than glamour: writing names on certificates for nearly a thousand delegates. We sat for hours, pens in hand, ensuring every spelling was correct.
When the conference began, delegates poured in from across India. The sessions ran smoothly. The hospitality held. The academic content was solid.
At the end, Dr. Chaubey—usually sparing with praise—looked at our handwritten certificates and gave a rare half-smile.
For us, that was more than enough.