Story of a doctor, and of nephrology in Kerala, engagingly told

Cover of Dr. M. Thomas Mathew’s autobiography
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The young doctor, who had just completed his M.D. from the Government College in Thiruvananthapuram, was all set to take up a job in a hospital in New Jersey. The US hospital had sent him the air ticket.

When Dr. M. Thomas Mathew broke the happy news to his professor, Dr. K.N. Pai, he was in for a surprise. “Why do you want to go to America?” his teacher wanted to know. “If you are going to the US to treat the people there, who will treat the patients here?

Dr. Pai told him that there was none to treat kidney patients in Kerala and that there was none who had the expertise in the latest methods of treatment. The advice made Dr. Mathew think.

He eventually decided against going overseas. Instead, he went to Chandigarh to specialise in nephrology and became a pioneering doctor in the field in Kerala.

Dr. Mathew went on to make significant contributions to the treatment of kidney diseases. He set up Kerala’s first department of nephrology, at the Government Medical College, Kozhikode, introduced dialysis, and was part of the team that performed the State’s first kidney transplant. How he did all that has been told engagingly in Mathew’s autobiography titled Ente Jeevitham Niraye.

The book, brought out by Aksharasree Publications, is a welcome addition to the literature on medicine. It not merely tells us about the life of a talented doctor but a lot about how nephrology took shape in the State.

Doctors and students of medicine should find Ente Jeevitham Niraye educational. But the manner in which the book is written ensures it could be enjoyed by those who don’t know much about medicine. Dr. Mathew manages to do that by making use of some interesting anecdotes, such as the one about an elderly patient who lent his car – till the doctor could buy one himself.

We also learn more about India’s first nephrologist, Dr. Kirpal Singh Chugh, who was the man responsible for bringing the first dialysis machine to Kerala. It was from him that Dr. Mathew learnt nephrology, at Chandigarh.

“I wanted to write this book because I felt my experiences in nephrology, at a time when most people hadn’t even heard about the subject, needed to be recorded,” Dr. Mathew told The Hindu. “And I am glad that I listened to my teacher at the Medical College.”