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A Doctor’s Memoirs:
An Inside Story of the Medical Profession
He describes in detail the ordeals of his life as a student there, his friends and associates as well as the seniors who inspired him to dedicate his life to the profession. Sutured closely with these experiences are his after work hours, his circle of friends fondly remembered and his thoughts of and fascination for those who had walked the path before him. His training in India, North Wales and England impressed upon him the differences in the lives of the doctors here and abroad. He chose to come back for the sake of his parents, and practice at home. He retired as Professor and Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology from the Guwahati Medical College in Assam. He later took to writing and has published, among others, a book of short stories and another on Assamese cuisine. On closer examination, however, one finds that Dr Gogoi has skillfully woven his own joys and pain with those of his patients though he professes to have maintained a ‘professional’ distance throughout! No wonder then that he remembers how ‘insipid’ it once felt to be in a striptease bar after he had walked out of the gynae ward in a hospital in England. How, years after the patients had recovered or died, he remembered not only their names and case histories but also anecdotes about these cases as well. As when he distinctly recalls a patient, a man from North Wales, who refused treatment till he had bet and won enough in the races to leave behind for his family! The unease of young mothers-to-be before they delivered, the joy of a newborn’s cry on the table and the anguish that struck even doctors sharp and hard when a patient could not be saved are all laid bare before the reader. This and the manouevres, brain racking and plain old skill that was required for his challenging assignments makes for an interesting read. Dr Gogoi, with a bare minimum of references to his personal life, has put his professional life under the scalpel and drawn a clear roadmap for all doctors who choose to follow the hard life. It saves you from the tear-stained melodramas that most such books turn out to be and in fact leaves behind a very large footprint. It also makes you want to travel down the same road.
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A
doctor’s memoirs is a skillful dissection of the life of a doctor
beginning with his days as a student, his training and his long and
variegated professional life. Dr Gogoi, an obstetrician and
gynaecologist, who was awarded the Padam Shree for his services to the
nation in 1984, donned the white coat at R. G. Kar Medical College,
Calcutta.