Overheard : Paging Dr. India

A physician friend from India who is working on the year-end Golden Jubilee celebrations of Bangalore Medical College e-mailed me recently seeking help in contacting the alumni in the US.

He reckons that of the 7,000 medical graduates the school has produced in half-a-century, at least 1,000 are in the US, and perhaps as many as 2,000 are outside India. I was wondering if this is true of other Indian medical schools when I came across an article in the New England Journal of Medicine that provides a startling insight into the flight of doctors from low-income countries, including India.

The biggest beneficiaries of this migration are four rich white countries — the US, Great Britain, Canada and Australia. India has graduated the highest number of doctors in the world (around 504,000) next only to the US (840,000). India is the biggest loser (or "donor," if you wish) of doctors to the four rich countries surveyed (R-4, for purposes of this article).

Some 12% of the half-million Indian medical graduates have migrated to the R-4. As a result, India is the top contributor of doctors to the US (40,839 or almost 5% of the US physicians work force) and to the UK (15,093 or almost 11% of its doctors work force). Indian doctors are the second most numerous in Australia after the locals (2,143 or 4%) and they are third in Canada (1,149 or 2.1%). These four countries alone account for 60,000 Indian physicians. Top six contributors to the US physicians pool besides India at the top spot include Philippines (17,873 doctors), Pakistan (9,667), Canada (8,990), China (6,687), the former USSR (5,060), Egypt (4,593) and Mexico (4,578). While India has lost some 12% of its medical graduates, Pakistan fares no better (lost 12,800 of its 97,000 medical graduates to the R-4). Sri Lanka has lost a staggering 27% (3,000 out of 8,000). Bangladesh, probably because it is a new country, has lost only 5% (1,700 out of 32,000).

But the biggest losers in percentage terms are countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, which produce a small pool of medical graduates, almost half of whom flee to the US.You can see the effect of this migration in the US where one out of every four doctors is a foreign medical graduate. Remember, we are not even counting the children of immigrant physicians who take after the parent and go to medical school.

Thanks to this inflow of foreign doctors, the US has around 35 physicians per 10,000 population. The ratio is even better for UK, Canada and Australia. India has around 5.2 doctors per 10,000 population, or a doctor for every 2,000 people (compared to one for every 280 in the US).

The deleterious effect of this shortage shows in a range of dismal health metrics in India from its high birth rates to high infant mortality rate. For India to produce more doctors than any other nation save the US means the country's leadership laid a pretty solid foundation in medical education. But they did little to retain the talent they nurtured. Today, some 250 Indian medical colleges graduate about 30,000 doctors annually.

So India will likely have a million-plus physicians before 2020. They will saturate the R-4 and discover new pastures. Before long, Indian medical colleges, like the IITs, will be having their alumni meeting in Boston instead of Bangalore, Canberra instead of Chennai, and Manchester instead of Mumbai.

Chidanand Rajghatta

COMMENT : How very prophetic ! See list above.

CREDITS : timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1297502.cms

Reunion 2005 December 29 at the Bangalore Club

Thanks to Anantakishan efforts, and MC by Mohini, 52 classmates had a wonderful time, reminescing and planning ahead. Beyond the usual, of keeping in touch several items of interest were raised. ( Photo Link - See Link)

1. Annual or atleast 2 yearly get togethers. To keep the interests of our spouses and kids combine the meet with CME using a local cruise ( STAR in India between Mumbai and Lakshadweep - 3 days, or a short cruise in the USA- Caribbean or Mexico or Alaska)
2. eProfessor ( post your talks on power point thru the BMC Digital Center submission by CD so that Dr. K. Lakshman can archive it for our students. Using the BMC Alumni web site would be another option.
3. Update our addresses and eMails and areas of interest so that if our own classmates need our assistance timely help can be provided.
4. Charitable work at local charitable institutions or lectures etc which our local classmates may have an interest in.

BY THE WAY, THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE DONATED TO THE BMC DIGITAL LIBRARY. (Latest list is on the BMC Alumni Web Site)

Attendees:

V S Chandrashekar, PN Jayakumar, H & N Manjunaths, Sanjay Deshpande, MS Kumaraswamy, BN Harish, SS Srikanta, Shankar Raman, MS Ashok, PG Jayaprakash, HG Adisesh, VH Balasangameshwara, SA Kasturi, MR Nalini, M Gayatri Devi, C V Devaraj, DA Satish, BG Saroja, Satyavati Reddy, H Ratna, Santan Gopal, Sumathi Wable, Uday Chandraghatgi, KS Umashankar, S Rajanna, NS Murlidhar, PR Sreenivasa Babu, M Dunda Madiah, J N Sridhara Murthy, SS Shantaram, BA Prasanna, Arundhati Chalam, Ramitha Pai, Sheela V Jiojinni (Patil), BN Gangadhar, Ramani Lakshman, B Susheelamma, Umadevi, G Sugunna, Mohini Prasad, Nilima Sabharwal, RK Saroja, Swarnalatha Ramdev, Suvarna Modi, Sridevi Hegde, C Sharat Kumar, KS Prasanna Kumar, G Banumathy, Ramamani, BS Viswanath, BG Saroja.

Vasantha Reddy, Neelakantha, Bhattacharjee, were unable to attend.

It Is As It Was !!

Just after the Golden 50th Year celebrations Of our beloved Bangalore Medical College, a bunch of us , just wanted to go down memory lane once last time.

To me the old PPC block, the sweaty old mens gymnasium, the old biochem labs , dissecting theatres and physiology labs were the most interesting.

So we went ahead and discovered:

PPC Block : Exists only in name, the Library and administrative sectors have taken over.

Anatomy Block: The old dissection lab is now a museum (same stuff and dusty), the lab has now shifted to the previously dilapidated section behind the old tennis courts. A new building now houses it. There are 150 students per batch, 15 per specimen. I could not resist the smell of formaldehyde and so we checked it out. The place is a lot cleaner, the tables aluminum, new lockers are added and the custodians have some modern equipment! Like a power saw !! I found a few old dusty histology work binders partly completed by the present live denizens. Their work was just the same.

Biochemistry: The lab is just the same. Remember the glass pipette... remains. A worthy specimen with its half broken tip but clean!!! was discovered , inspected and carefully put back. The ambiance was too precious for me to disturb. How about Benedicts solution ( to check blood sugar) or picric acid or the Bunsen burners, they too were there except the tubing is new. By the way remember the test tube holders, I found mine from the past, no it did not have my name, but I distinctly recollect, the thing had no clamp. The test tube was held gingerly by just the tongs! The reagents bottles were all dust covered and without tops. I gave two bottles my last gingerly caress , cleaned up and precisely placed them where I found them... and moved on. On the chalk board the famous algorithm " How to detect a chemical solution" still remains.

Experimental Physiology Lab: The frog thing is gone (Thanks to Meneka Gandhi and her animal stuff). The old smoke drums are still there, only now moved to the pharmacology lab. Think about the twitch recordings; I know my frog prep always failed, or the frog escaped before being pithed. The lab is the same. A recent set of results from a exam was posted (Max marks 35 ; results ranged from 31 to 13). The hematology lab upstairs is modern with sets of tube lights than sunlight (our days) to brighten the microscopes. " Sallis method" remember is and still is used to check Hb. Students are expected to know this as per present curriculum.

Main entrance: The old records office on the ground floor is gone. The hall way is now big, but, the old Hippocratic oath still hangs over. It never fails to impress as much as it did the first day in 1971 I walked into BMC to pay my first fees, only to gaze at those words, and hope I would ever live up to it.

The 45 minutes I spent doing this with Adisesh, Shantaram, Kumaraswamy, Krishna Reddy, BS Viswanath and Anantakishan was priceless. Thanks guys !

Lolly.

Funny comments during training

• What is a Microscope? A instrument used to see what a naked man's eye cannot. (Contributor: Mohini Prasad).

BMC : Batch Of 1971: Instructions

Welcome,
This is an interactive site, which allows all of you to comment and send us information.
Currently Dr. Adisesh is managing the Bangalore contacts, Shantaram and I here.

CLICK UNDER COMMENTS, EITHER TO SEE WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID OR IF YOU WISH TO LEAVE ANY COMMENTS YOURSELF.

We need more participation so please join in.

PROJECTS:

1. Family potraits , so that other classmates can also enjoy. Email your picture files to me.
2. Please let us know of your special interests and area of work, so a file on this web log (blog) can be kept up, will help all of us , if we ourselves need help or our families need assistance.
3. If you come / go to USA/ UK or Bangalore, let us know so we can post. Will help you either set up presentations or can stay with us to host you.
4. Finally keep your Email and phone numbers current.

Internet address for this site : bmc1971.blogspot.com : please bookmark.

For list of confidential (not for solicitation) address and contact information: rehabmd@gmail.com or adishesh_hg@yahoo.co.in

Our site is linked to BMC Alumni Association also. (courtesy Dr. Lakshman )