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A doctor's return to India. Not so much a diary as a ramble.

Dear R2I good folks

I have been following this forum for the best part of 3 years. I have learnt and implemented a lot of collective wisdom of this forum to make my return to India as trouble-free as it could be. It has been a year since I have returned and things seem, to put it mildly, not too bad.

Background – a bit murky (just a little)
Straight forward middle-class, no frills upbringing – dad a professor & mum an office secretary. Did kind of OK at school and went to study medicine in Tamilnadu. Coimbatore to be precise. Not the fanciful private medical colleges, just the bog standard Government College. Paid a fee of Rs.800 for my first semester at college. The fee went up to a whopping Rs.1500 in my final year (1993). Did the usual things including student union, cultural activities (why do they ever call that?) etc., - an above average student (just) as a result. Was jailed at least on six different occasions for protesting against the government, once remanded at Madras Central Jail for a couple of weeks – for protesting too much. I was the State General Secretary of all Tamilnadu medical colleges then, protesting against privatisation of medical education. It is funny to think back. Was rounded up by a dozen gun wielding policemen, in the poky little hotel in Chennai we were staying for talks with the Government, on an early Saturday morning, produced before the magistrate who said “In you go buddy – you doth protest too much” or something along those lines.

Going to London to study was very cool. The seniors in college always did it. Thought I might as well give it a go. Spoke to my parents, who agreed in principle. Set of in 1996. Never thought then, that I would stay away for close to 14 years, or a couple of years ago that I would ever return back to India. In life, change is the only constant. Nothing philosophical, just the fact.

Will write some more about less murky aspects in a few days. A somewhat busy doctor these days you see.

OK, not so busy then.

Lazy Sunday morning. Raining for the past 2 weeks. Nice and damp. This evokes the “can’t be bothered” feeling, when you sit in the balcony with a cup of steaming coffee.

Kids from my neighbours’ doing some unusual repetitive movements figuring out the Wii Olympics, with my kid. Wife on phone and cooking - that damn “I can multitask and you can’t” look about her. I won’t generalise here.

Left to my own. Peace. Ah Bliss!!

Right. London here we come. But there is nothing quite so joyous as leaving the hustle and bustle of a superheated Third World hellhole – my friend Johnny boy said, he is now somewhere in the damp, jobless north-east of England. He has a job though. We were greeted on the big Gulf Air jumbo by a man, who I thought was interested in the same rather than the opposite sex, with a cold flannel and a refreshing glass of white wine.

London. The bright lights were nothing short of distraction. After frittering away the hard earned paisa from India – albeit my parents’ hard earned paisa from India, with the obligatory weekend trips to bohemian Soho, we all ended up as trainee doctors in the NHS. Not to forget the semi-compulsory donations to the Sri-Lankan Tamil cause, when you go to get free lunch at Lord Murugan - that quintessential Tamil God’s place. Not that I was religious or something, just a much needed break from my own ghastly attempts at cooking. Only disadvantage – no chicken! This was ’97.

nice work keep us posted same story i kept going to the gurudwara for free food.

rk

Stayed as a paying guest in Eastham so didnt have to go for free food, but know the feeling! I guess with your userid you must be an anaesthetist and rajradio a radiotherapist?

Chechi,

I am an interventional radiologist remember. There a long blog some time ago.

RK

Eastham, Newham. For the ordinary Cockneys, a happening place. For the one's from the home counties - the armpit of London. It didn't smell that bad when we initially landed. It did as days went by. While free food at the temples and gurudwara were enticing, the return home was nothing short of traumatic. Always had a couple of pound coins in the pocket for the obligatory mugger. It did happen on a couple of occasions too. Lesson - avoid the back streets. Not easy when you do not have a mobile phone and have to go to the British Telecom Box to make the phone calls. Mind you people, there is nothing romantic about the BT boxes. So next time you are in the square mile doing the Thames cruise, London eye and the Beefeaters, there would be hawkers peddling the telephone box as a nostalgic souvenir. Don't even bother.

Two things about BT boxes kept me interested though. One, pretty much every box had addresses and contact details of ladies of a particular professional disposition, and two the old codgers at BT had not realised then, that the Indian 5 rupee coin was very similar to the pound coin in weight and dimensions. Mind you the conversion was about Rs 55, so a saving 10 times over, with some change to boot. The former was never put to use, and the latter on very few occasions.

The good folks here have guessed it right. Anaesthesia is my primary specialty (anaesthesiology for the people who speak with a distinct drawl). Have not put someone to sleep for nearly six years. You should exclude bed time stories from this. Pain Medicine is my specialisation. This has taken me a few places, and now Hyderabad.

Nice ramble. Your British expressions and vocabulary remind me of Shakespeare's dramas, I read more than a decade ago. I could not retain any of that, after I was exposed to, much liberal, easier, American expressions.

May be reading your ramble, gives a good opportunity to update my vocabulary again.

Though glossed over, like the Grand Canyon, the gap between landing in London and landing a training job was huge. Too many variables which are not really under your control. My luck - it was like the London buses, it comes in three’s or none at all. The Rosebery Avenue house where we stayed had seen plenty of tears by then. Better doctors have failed the qualifying exams thrice and had to go back to India. Only 30% passed. The fee to re-sit was eye-watering too.

We made a pact. Whoever gets through the exams would look after the rest, till they pass and land a job. Whoever gets through will come back to visit friends in Eastham. Whoever gets through will sponsor the drink for the weekend visits as well as Madras restaurant’s masala dosa – a great treat. Agreed.

It should be I to get through with the first attempt. Lucky. Whatever money I had after the requisite “exam pass” parties, was spent on the exam fee for the friends who flunked it. Now, to the job search. There were 250 applicants for each job, with local graduates too. Cat in a hell’s chance. The postage fee for applications after each Friday’s BMJ classified was burning a hole in my pocket.

As chance would have it, one of my friends who did not get through had a contact in Kent. He was intending to use it after he passed the exams. Now, he was willing to pass on the information for a bottle of Bacardi. Small inconvenience. It was over Bacardi and Coke that he divulged details, a consultant anaesthetist, a good hearted Sri-Lankan Tamil, could help me out. I listened intently, but promptly finished off the Bacardi before he came back from speaking to his mother on the phone. We can receive but not make calls from the landline, was the curmudgeonly landlord’s orders. His mother was trying to console him and instil some positive spirits, so to speak. Ah Ganpat! Ganpat, Ganpat - you were so ignorant.

[QUOTE]The postage fee for applications after each Friday’s BMJ classified was burning a hole in my pocket.

You are literally taking me down memory lane. Most of us overseas doctors developed a much better understanding of the geography of the UK even compared to local docs. Because we were willing to apply everywhere inclding far flung boondocks, in the early days, I remember sitting with map of UK( the middle page one in the free book of Britain from British Council, Trivandrum) and locating all the names of the places where jobs were advertised. Looking for an advert for hubby in the same geographic region as well!
[QUOTE]Though glossed over, like the Grand Canyon, the gap between landing in London and landing a training job was huge.
Ah, epic statement , this one. It was all about being 'good enough', wasnt it?
Those were the days when contacts and references really counted ,though.
[QUOTE]I am an interventional radiologist remember. There a long blog some time ago.


So you did- my error. It was a recent post from elsewhere of yours about starting a small group practice in Oncology that thre me off.