Last week, we successfully hosted the Best of ASCO meeting in Bangalore. One of the sessions in the meeting was a specially designed exam-oriented Bootcamp meant for students of oncology to hone their practical exam skills. As part of the core committee organizing the conference, I had the opportunity to select faculty for this session.
Among other current and former teachers, I invited Dr Rakesh Ramesh, presently the Professor and Head of the Department of Surgical Oncology at St. John’s Medical College Hospital to co-lead the session. The Bootcamp was a resounding success and received excellent feedback from the participating students.
Dr Rakesh being my own student (Surgical Oncology batch of 2011), it was a proud moment for me as I watched him engage students with ease. I am a “grand-teacher” and “grand-examiner” now, I thought. And after the program, he had no qualms in introducing me as his teacher to his own students.
The next morning, I was moderating a session in a dedicated surgical track of the meeting. In the very first row sat Dr K.S. Gopinath, a doyen of surgical oncology, and among the most senior and accomplished surgical oncologists in the country. Many of my own teachers have been students of his, and by that reckoning, he is my “grand-teacher”. It was a pleasure to see his keen participation in the proceedings, sharp and intelligent as ever with his observations.
That made it five generations of oncologists! Each sharing knowledge as well as learning from the others – after all, learning is a lifelong pursuit.