When a 23-year-old MBBS student who had just graduated from Government Medical College Amritsar, applied in the mid-1950s for the MD programme with specialisation in kidney diseases at Panjab University, its faculty of medicine turned it down, saying no such specialty existed. He was instead offered admission to its cardiology or gastroenterology course. Not being the one to take no for an answer, he again applied for the same programme twice but received a rejection letter every time. When he applied yet again the university dean said with an air of resignation in his voice: “This kid seems to be crazy.
Let him do what he wants”. That boy went on to create a new paradigm in the field of medicine in India and is now remembered as the “father of nephrology”. Dr KS Chugh became the first Indian to receive the reputed Bywaters Award in recognition of his outstanding work and the sustained…
