Hyderabad: The oldest alumni of Osmania Medical College, 90-year old Dr R. D. Lele, director of nuclear medicine in Tata Memorial Hospital, exhorted the need for clinical research to create new medicines and new formulations to treat diseases.
With rising cost of medicines it is very important that indigenous drugs be developed which will go a long way in creating new formulations, he said.
Dr Lele felt that there were too many challenges like crippling infrastructure and collapsing public health system. However, there is a demand and the gap can be best filled by bringing out the best in students.
The Old Students’ Association presented six scholarships to merit students and hoped that these encouragements would help turn out good doctors from their almamater. Senior doctors, now based in the United States, like paediatrician Dr C. Govind Rao and cardiologist Dr T. Madhusudhan Gupta felt that the medical climate in India was good and students must work hard and cash in on it.
The Old Students’ Association in the last 15 years has donated Rs 1.9 crore to both the college and the hospital. In a bid to help their almamater, senior doctors are contemplating a larger fund which can then be used in areas where the government has failed.
The senior doctors have collected a corpus fund of Rs 2 crore and are helping out the college, hospital and also students out of the interest accrued from these funds Senior doctor and emeritus chairman of the association, Dr A. Gopal Kishan, said, “We are willing to make huge contributions once the government takes up the restoration work of the hospital.”
