CME INDIA Presentation by ⚜ Dr. M. Gowri Sankar, MD, Senior Assistant Professor, Dept. of General Medicine, Government Medical College and ESI Hospital, Coimbatore.
Today’s History Feature:
Prof. Dr. Balasubramaniam Ramamurthi
🇮🇳 The Pride of India 🇮🇳
(Jan 30, 1922 – Dec 13, 2003)
💠Father of Indian Neurosurgery
💠Founder of Madras Institute of Neurology
His contributions…
🔸Ramamurthi was born in Tamil Nadu at a small town Sirkazi, Tanjore District. Since childhood he was inspired by his father who was a doctor in the Government Service. Sadly, he lost his mother when he was just five and a half years old.
🔸He was very studious, and therefore secured state rank in intermediate studies and then joined to study medicine at Madras Medical College (MMC), Chennai. While studying medicine, he received many awards including Johnstone Gold Medal. During his college life, he fell in love with his classmate Dr. Indra Lakshmipathi and got married in 1945.
🔸After that, he completed his MS degree in 1947 and FRCS at Edinburgh.
🔸As per the suggestion of his surgery professor, he got into the neurosurgery specialization. By the support of his family, he spent two years in hands-on training in various neuro surgical centers in Europe and also in the Montreal Neurological Institute, Canada.
🔸After his training, he joined as an Assistant Surgeon in his Alma Mater, MMC. After crossing many obstacles and challenges, he developed an exclusive neurosurgery department and further established the Madras Institute of Neurology (MIN) in 1950.
🔸In fact, MIN was the second neuroscience department started in India after Prof. Dr. Jacob Chandy had started the Neurosurgery department at Christian Medical College, Vellore a few months earlier.
🔸Prof. B. Ramamurthi (fondly called as Prof. BRM or Chief) dedicated his professional life completely on developing the neurosurgical department and did many brain surgeries.
🔸During 1960, he started a stereotaxic surgery unit (minimally invasive neuro surgery). Here, he trained and mentored a galaxy of doctors for doing stereotactic procedures and turned MMC into an internationally acclaimed institution in the field of stereotactic surgery.
🔸Further, in association with other giants in the field such as Prof. Chandy, Dr. Baldev Singh and Dr. S. T. Narasimhan, Prof. BRM established the Neurological Society of India at Chennai in 1951.
🔸Prof. BRM became the Founder-secretary of the society and also the Founder-editor of the society’s official journal, Neurology India.
🔸After his retirement in 1978, he devoted the last twenty-five years of his life to build the Achanta Lakshmipathi Neurosurgical Center and Post Graduate Institute of Neurological Surgery in the Voluntary Health Services (VHS) Hospital, Chennai. Thereby, he became the trendsetter in starting the private academic neurosurgical training institutions.
🔸Moreover, he authored and co-authored over 300 scientific papers and co-edited the following:
🔅Textbook of Neurosurgery (Three editions)
🔅Textbook of Operative Neurosurgery
🔸Also, he extended his support to establish the National Brain Research Centre at Manesar, Haryana, an apex center for neuroscience research.
🔸He was decorated with various awards including Dhanwantri award, Padma Shri (1972) and Padma Bhushan (1977) from Government of India.
🔸He released his impressive autobiography “Uphill all the way” in the year 2000. Also, Prof. B. Ramamurthi Neurosciences Museum was established at the VHS Hospital campus, Chennai on his 80th birthday in 2002.
🔸One of his favorite quotation – “To reach the unreachable star, It is my quest to follow the star, No matter how hopeless, no matter how far.”
A Day to Commemorate…
The Neurosurgeon with Incredible Legacy
Prof. Dr. B. Ramamurthi🙏🏼
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Sir, VGM. Greetings! In the year 1953, prof BR treated my late elder brother V Babu as a 6 month kid for a neuro problem. In GH, only my parents were with my brother. My family , that time was based at erode. Seeing my mother’s lack of sleep, for two nights, prof BR stayed with the kid post operation and asked my mother to sleep. Professor coordinated with his PG batchmates and ensured for rest of the hospital stay my mother had a good night sleep. Till his death, my brother used to go to prof BR for annual check up. He never took fees, used to tell I learnt neurology because of V Babu, prof B R had the greatest respect for my parents. In spite of his achievements, whenever my father used to accompany my brother for check up , prof used to come to the main door of his clinic to see him off. A great human being and professor par excellence 🙏🏻
🙏🙏🙏🙏
Great teacher.
Great surgeon
Great promoter of youngsters in neurosciences
His faith in the lord was there as he said before making rounds
“APART FRON GOD WHO US LOOKING AFTER THIS PATIENT!
Great sense of humour and knew how to enjoy lighter moments of life!!
🙏🙏Woww
Dear Sir,
I am Dr. Ravi Ramamurthi son of Prof. Ramamurthi. My father married in 1945 and not 1943. In 1950 it was called the department of Neurosurgery and in 1970 after a seven storied building was constructed that it was called Institute of Neurology. Thanks for writing a nice article.
Thank you for your comment. We have updated the article to reflect your feedback.
He was honoured with BRIGADIER POST BY ARMED FORCES OF INDIA
He was so pleased to be teaching that he once called Dr. Niveditha and me into his consulting room to ask if we could make a spot- diagnosis of a Muscular Dystrophy patient. This was inspite of the fact that we were two D.G.Os assisting Dr. Indira Ramamurthy next door.