As many as 175 doctors and nurses received their graduation degrees at the convocation ceremony held at Nitte University in Mangalore on Saturday.
The students who pursued courses such as Master of Dental Sciences, Master of Pharmacy, Master of Science in Nursing, Master of Surgery, Doctor of Medicine, Master of Physiotherapy and Post-Basis B.Sc. (Nursing) received their degrees. As many as 26 merit certificates were handed out, with Jaswinder Gulati receiving the A.K. Munshi gold medal for getting the highest marks in the Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry course.
The valedictory speech was given by Padma Bhushan awardee and founder of Narayana Hrudalaya Devi Prasad Shetty.
Emphasising the virtues of humility and a good attitude, Mr. Shetty said compassion, determination, perseverance and an ability to cope with change were hallmarks of a “great” doctor.
He advised the students who intended to pursue surgery to not take failure to heart.
“Failure is a part of life. The safest surgeon is the surgeon who does not operate,” he said.
He urged them to use their skills to serve the less privileged. Taking example of manual scavengers, he said “There are 9,000 manual scavengers in Bangalore. They dive into sewers and clean them up so that richer people don’t get bothered by sewage. Their life expectancy is 45 years as they either die of leptospirosis or some liver disease as they can only dive into a sewer in a drunken state. But their death does not disquiet us. We will become a great nation when we feel responsible for their death,” said Dr. Shetty.
Keywords: Nitte University, convocation, Jagadish Shettar
