The Silver and Blue. Review on Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore

CHRISTIAN MEDICAL COLLEGE AND HOSPITAL

My association with this institution started in 1973, when I joined the MBBS course. I continued to work there after my marriage and spent a spell working in an outlying mission hospital to put to use some of the skills learnt here. I learnt self reliance and the need constantly to do the best under the most adverse of circumstances. The teaching is a based on the Gurukul style where you have foster parents among the staff. The course is completely residential.Missionary vision created it and there was pioneering work to sustain it. though situated in Vellore, the capital of North Arcot district, patients come from as far a field as the gulf states and within the country from the north and west of India. What brings in the patients and what is the attraction for aspirants to this centre of excellence?

THE GOOD POINTS

Quite simply, it is the fact that National greed and corruption have not as yet entered its gates.There is a true missionary spirit that pervades the teaching and the treatment here. About 45 churches and missions support and in some instances subsidise the treatment and fund equipment and teaching here. Admission is gained by an all India exam and a residential 3 day interview which selects merely 60 students with the sexes roughly equally divided. The background of the students is diverse and truly representative of the cosmopolitan state. Being thrown together for many hours in the day often in difficult hospital and field situations makes for lasting friendships.

THE NEGATIVE POINTS

If there was a fault of this institution in the old days it was the great christian missionary zeal that found it hard to recognise other major religions, but now that the senior staff are all young indian doctors with their outlook truly cosmopolitan,so even this slightly troubling feature of the place is non existent.

Katpadi junction to vellore town is an odoriferous experience as there is an open sewer all the way by the side of the road. The locals look at CMC &H Vellore as a large institution in their midst. Though it provides employment and does a lot at promoting health in deprived urban areas (most of vellore) and the outlying villages, one feels that there is a distance and maybe there should be more of a rubbing of shoulders with local Taluk officers, panchayats and dare I say it even politicians to make it a genuinely friendly place. The hospital and all it stands for is a mockery if Vellore remains a filthy town and the hospital I feel should invest in the town and work to make it cleaner and greener.

AN APPEAL

Currently the college adminstration is fighting its corner for maintaining this independence for selection of MBBS candidates on merit and a spirit of service. It needs the help both moral and vocal of all those who can feel the spirit of love.

friends help preserve this national institution and do not let it be prey to the usual greed and corruption rampant in private colleges by the interference of the state government.