59 Our son follows his sister into another professional course

Normally, in Kerala families in the 80s and 90s, many of the children followed their parents’ footsteps in the choice of professions. A doctor’s son becomes a doctor, engineer’s son becomes engineer and so on. There are several advantages in this as the experience and contacts of the parents can be used by the children, if required. Of late, this trend is being changed as many children choose their profession based on their talents and information they collect from other sources including teachers and internet. In our campus, for many children their first choice was engineering, except a very few. Very few parents were inclined to object to it as engineering was not a bad profession and unemployment was not as serious as of now due to the large number of engineering graduates coming out of the self-financing colleges. Our son was also in the same boat as many of his friends were trying for admission to engineering after their pre-degree course. 

But, as our daughter had already got admission to engineering and having a doctor in the family was one of our long-cherished wishes, I tried to tell him how noble the profession of a doctor is and other advantages of being a doctor. Once upon a time, medicine was my first choice too even though I could not get admission for medicine, the reason being the comparatively low marks I got for Physics in my pre-university. We, elder brothers in our family, tried to bring up one of our younger brothers to join medicine but he ended up with B.Sc.(Physics) as he did not get enough marks for admission to medicine. All these stories were poured into our son to make him try for both medicine and engineering in the Kerala entrance examination. He had taken Biology group for pre-degree with Mathematics as additional subject so that he becomes eligible for both. Accordingly, he wrote the Kerala entrance examination in 1989 for both engineering and medicine. He came up with a good rank near about 100 for both medicine and engineering. First call for admission was from REC Calicut and he had to decide as he was certain to get a first choice for engineering in REC and also admission to MBBS in a Government Medical College. He was also ranked for Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) and was called for interview at Pune. But decided to opt out as he was certain to get admission in Kerala.   As some of his classmates were also called for interview at REC, he asked me whether he can also go for the interview. Probably, he had still some interest in joining engineering in the back of his mind, but decided to oblige us by accepting our wish. He later told me that he sat in the interview hall and when his name was called in turn did not go forward to take admission. A few weeks later he was admitted in Calicut Medical College (CMC) in its 33^rd batch commencing in 1989. He completed his MBBS in 1994.

As those with MBBS alone was not able to go up in their profession, I advised him to prepare for Post Graduate Medical Entrance examination without going for a job in any of the private hospital. As soon as he got his registration from Travancore Medical Council, there was an advertisement for Asst Surgeons in Govt. Medical Service for which he applied. When he was feeling bored, he offered himself as a substitute doctor in some of the small peripheral hospitals in and around Calicut. As some of these hospitals had only one or two doctors, usually husband and wife, these hospitals needed doctors for a few days when the regular doctors went on leave. That way he could make some pocket money for his personal expenses too. The very first one where he worked was in a remote village near Nilambur and was recommended by his class mate and friend. He was very happy to work there as he loved the natural scenery around. The hospital offered him tasty food for all the 5 days he worked there, but at the end of the period, the administrator said they will send the remuneration by money order. Innocently, he believed them and returned home and the payment was never made in spite of his request to his class mate who recommended the hospital to him. So, the first job he did was really service with no remuneration, typical of a self-less doctor!!!

He wrote the very first All India Medical Entrance Examination after passing out which was held in February. After the examination, he came home and when we asked him he said the examination was difficult. After a few months, we heard in the News that results have been declared and will appear in the Newspapers next day. As we did not have much hope, his mother gave us food and slept off early, but we, my son and myself did not sleep. The first bus coming from Calicut to Mokkam used to bring the Newspapers at 2AM and we managed to get a copy of the paper from the paper boy and found that he has been ranked, though not very high. We were talking loud between us and laughing when my wife got up and was still lying down pretending to sleep. Our son went up to her and told “Mum, I have been ranked”. She was happy but chided him “ You naughty, why did you tell me a lie  then that the examination was difficult?”. He said coolly “Mum, I said the examination was difficult, but not for ME”. Everyone laughed at his quick wit.

Since his rank was a bit low, and his first choice was Paediatrics or General Medicine, he was offered Diploma in Paediatrics in Calicut Medical College as he was not very keen to go outside the state where he must have got admission for MD or MS. He joined the college and was happy with his work enjoying his job with the young children. His only complaint was “I can manage the children, infant or toddler, but not the mothers with them”. Along with his studies, he studied further for Kerala Medical Entrance and when the results were announced after about 6 months, he had secured a reasonably good rank 32  in the examination.  The selection was in Thiruvananthapuram and when his turn came he found that all seats for MD in Paediatrics and General Medicine had been filled and the only MD seat available was for Radiodiagnosis at two colleges, He grabbed the only seat available in Calicut Medical College. At that time this branch was not very much in demand but of late it is in high demand. Moreover, the drudgery of the work is also less in this speciality with no night calls like the ones for gynaecologists   or general  physicians. He can work and relax in peace after work at home and enjoy his favourite   music or cinema. He could also overcome the inadequacies in  the  department by visiting   internationally acclaimed websites of  radiologists like  Radiological  Society  of North America (www.rsna.org), Royal College of Radiologists (https://www.rcr.ac.uk/)  etc  as  he  had  been introduced  to internet  and we  had arranged  for a net connection at home. Of course, the facilities for teaching Radiodiagnosis in CMC was not adequate as no CT or MRI was available at that time and diagnosis was based on the X-ray and Ultrasound only in the beginning or based on reports from private scanning centres.  By the time he was in the final year, a spiral CT was purchased and commissioned by Kerala Health Research and Welfare Society (KHRWS) and as he was conversant with computer usage, he learnt to use CT quickly and could help his colleagues and even some teachers to learn how to use CT.  He also did a wise thing along with his MD, wrote the examinations for the Diplomate of National Board (DNB) which is globally accepted as a post graduate qualification in medicine and came out successful.

As he was preparing  for his final examination for his MD, he got his appointment order as Asst. Surgeon and was asked to join the Govt. Hospital in Calicut Beach. He joined the hospital and applied for leave for 2 months for writing his examination. His former teacher in Radiodiagnosis was on deputation to this hospital and he was completing his term soon. He told him that when he re-joined after the leave, he will be able to take up his position. But unfortunately, when our son  reported for duty after leave he was posted in the casualty where his specialization was not required. The post vacated by his teacher was taken up by someone with influence in the Directorate of Medical Education.  As he did not want to forget what he learned in the last three years in PG he joined a private hospital in Calicut as Radiodiagnosis expert and started his career. As he was interested in a special branch of radiology called Interventional radiology, he moved to another private hospital in Calicut where some work was being done in this connection.

He did not stop with that, he wanted to get his Fellowship in Royal College of Radiologists (FRCR) and started preparing for it. However, these examinations were not being conducted in India. He had to go to Singapore or Nepal for writing the exam. I told him as I knew Singapore well, I will give the money but he said, No I will try to get some fellowship in Singapore hospital and work, earn and then write his exam. He got a fellowship in Changi hospital, Singapore and wrote his part A for FRCR. Before going to Singapore, he was married to a Doctor from Thiruvananthapuram. She was doing her Diploma in Ophthalmology in CMC. A boy was born to them and grandma had an enjoyable time with him. Our son went to UK for Part B examination and started liking the system there.  Meanwhile he continued his fellowship in another hospital, K.K. Hospital Singapore for one more year. He also tried to get his name included the Register for Specialists in Radiology which proved ultimately successful.  After that he got a job directly as a Consultant Radiologist in UK. He has completed his FRCR duly after being in UK and is continuing as Consultant in NHS. His wife, an Ophthalmologist is also working there. They are in Scotland with two lovely sons. Our first grandson is now completing his 12^th and trying for admission to universities, not in medicine of his parents or engineering of his uncle, aunt or grandparent, but wants to pursue a career in Economics. We pray for his admission in one of the very good universities in UK.