Verghese V Joseph –
A slew of services has been planned as part of St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore celebrating its 60 years of existence this year. St John’s Medical College under the aegis of St John’s National Academy of Health Sciences will celebrate its diamond Jubilee (1963 – 2023) in Bengaluru on Saturday.
The inauguration will take place on Saturday 12″ August from 10.30- 11. 30 am at St. John’s Auditorium, Bengaluru. The chief guest for the ceremony will be the Chief Minister of Karnataka Mr Siddaramaiah and will deliver the inaugural address. The event will be presided over by the President of Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) – Most Rev. Andrew Thazhat. Other guests of honour include ministers — Mr Ramalinga Reddy, minister for transport, Mr K. J. George, minister for energy, Mr Dinesh Gundu Rao, minister for health & family welfare and Mr Sharan Prakash Patil, minister for medical education, Government of Karnataka.
Besides the above, Dr George D’Souza, dean, St. John’s Medical College, Rev Dr Paul Parathazham, Director, St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Dr. Ranganath Nayak, chairperson of diamond jubilee committee will also be present.
A special postal cover will be released by India Post to commemorate this event. There will also be a felicitation ceremony for Mary Glowery Award winner Sr Celia (1981 MBBS batch).
The inaugural ceremony will be preceded by a thanksgiving mass by the Archbishop of Bangalore Most Rev. Peter Machado.
The diamond jubilee celebrations will be held from August 11- 13th, 2023 at St. John’s campus. This year, 1500 alumni from all over the world will be coming together during this celebration. Over 100 of them who have graduated from St. John’s in its first decade will be felicitated as diamond jubilarians.
Following the inaugural ceremony, the inauguration of the new Oncology Centre and the Nuclear Medicine department would also be undertaken. The latest expansion of St John’s that will be inaugurated as part of the diamond jubilee celebrations this year include the upgraded Department of Oncology, Nuclear Medicine Department, and an Integrated Laboratory System.
Additionally, the St John’s Geriatric Centre is being established which would be one of the first such centre in India to provide comprehensive geriatric and palliative services under one roof. From a daily OPD to training. research and long-term palliative care, this centre will cater to the elderly and vulnerable population of Bengaluru, apart from establishing community engagement to promote healthy aging.
As part of its commitment to serving the underprivileged and poor, throughout this diamond jubilee year, St John’s Medical College Hospital will be offering these new services in addition to its regular services at rates much below the outside market price. The Unit of Hope would be offering free corrective surgery to select patients and the Department of Cardiology will offer free stents to select and deserving under-privileged cases. Free dialysis would be offered to deserving patients, and transplants at subsidised rates. A Community Ophthalmology Unit for cataract surgeries is being set up, probably the first of its kind in any medical college across India. Assistive devices for disabled and bedbound patients would be provided both in hospital and community settings for deserving underprivileged for free.
As part of the celebration week, there will be special academic sessions led by very renowned alumni doctors such as Dr. Salim Yusuf, a world-renowned cardiologist from McMaster University; Dr. Anantha Shekhar, vice chancellor and dean, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Patrick S. Kamath, Mayo Clinic, Dr. Chittaranjan Andrade, Prof of Clinical Psychopharmacology and Neurotoxicology, NIMHANS, Dr. Anura Kurpad, Professor and Head of Physiology, Head, IAEA Collaborating Centre St John’s Medical College Dr. Ragavendra R. Baliga, Professor of Medicine at the Ohio State University Scholl of Medicine, Ohio, Dr. Jijo James MD Chief Medical Officer, Medical technology and external innovations, Johnson and Johnson, Dr. Evita Fernandez, managing director of Fernandez Hospitals, Dr. Ashley LJ D’Cruz; senior consultant; paediatric liver and kidney transplantation, paediatric, robotic surgery; Mazundar Shaw Medical Center, Bangalore – amongst many others.
What was conceived as an idea in 1944, and started as a Medical College in 1963, is now known to many as a world-class medical college with over 750 undergraduate and 350 postgraduate and super-specialty students across various years of medical school each year, state-of-the-art 2000-plus bed hospital with a multitude of medical, surgical, and super-specialty departments.
The medical college is ably supported by the St John’s College of Nursing and the St John’s Institute of Allied Health Sciences which offer a range of paramedical courses. There is also the St John’s Research Institute (the first in a medical school) – with a biorepository that is involved in cutting-edge research in medicine.
St John’s has been consistently ranked among the top ten medical colleges across the country in various rankings, among the top 20 institutions in National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings, and has been recognised in consecutive cycles of National Accreditation Board for Hospitals (NABH) and National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation. Since its inception, the institution has been guided by its vision of “A world where quality healthcare is accessible and affordable even to the poorest.” The core values that define the characteristics of this institution are integrity, compassion and excellence.
St. John’s was one of the few institutes which mandated rural service for its MBBS graduates, decades before it became a government policy. Over 50% of St. John’s medical graduates have served their two-year rural social obligation service which started in the 70s. Of these, over 600 are sister doctor alumni who continued to serve in remote rural areas of the country.
The St. John’s Research Institute (SJRI) has been responsible for reshaping the agricultural and clinical policy of India in nutrition. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) changed their policy on the amount of protein that was needed for the human body based on the research that came out of this institute. In the month of July- August, 2 key happenings included the WHO-approved introduction of Polypill in the essential medicine list based on a recommendation of the multi-centric study conducted in SJRI and the approval of the app made in St. John’s to aid in designing supplementary feeding programs of the Integrated Child Development Services program in India.
The Unit of Hope, a St. John’s Centre for Children with special needs represents how the institution responds to the societal gap in treating the less privileged. The focus is on the assessment and management of children with developmental disorders and disabilities from birth to 18 years of age. Several children with disabilities from across India have been helped through this centre.
St John’s Medical Education Unit is one of the 10 nodal centres across India, and is involved in a host of training programmes for medical faculty across Karnataka and India.
Several members of the teaching faculty have taken leadership positions in the State Medical University, state and national advisory boards, including Niti Ayog, that have crafted policy in various fields. Several of them hold patent rights to innovations in the medical field and guide budding researchers in pursuing scientific explorations.
Every year, over a 1000 national and international publications are produced by various faculty of the institution. The students of the institution have been consistently securing several University ranks and distinctions every year, as well as winning awards and honours at various National and International conferences. Several students from across the country and world also come to St John’s every year to undertake elective podings and observerships.