Padma Shri Dr V. Mohan, the president and director of Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, chairman and chief of diabetology at Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre, wears many hats. He is a researcher, an educator, a motivational speaker, an erstwhile poet, debater and athlete. Excerpts from a trip with him, down memory lane.
The colleges you attended and your area of study
I started pre-university at Loyola College, Chennai. During those nine months, I lost three months to illness and I thought I wouldn’t be able to write the exam. But I was lucky, and I stood first in the pre-university exams. Ultimately, I joined Madras Medical College (MMC), and did both my MBBS and MD there. I got various medals throughout my time there — for sports, oration, and academics, among other things.
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Initially, I wanted to study English literature and become a poet. In fact, when I was a medical student, I wrote a book of poems which later got published. Until my house surgency, I kept writing, but I was also deeply interested in research and medicine. One (poetry) is abstract and the others, precise; I figured that they would not go well together. So, I stopped and said “Now let’s focus on research.”
What did college teach you, besides the obvious?
I think I learned to wear different hats. So, poetry on one side, academics on the other side, research on yet another side, taking part in dramatics, debating and athletics. I always liked to do multiple things at the same time, and do them all well. Multitasking widens your skills, capacity and self-confidence, and you don’t get bored doing only one thing monotonously. Learning time-management, prioritisation and how to do multiple things well, at the same time, is the reason for my success today.
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Memorable moments
I met my wife at MMC, which is certainly one of my most memorable moments. Not just because I fell in love with and married her, but also because she became my partner in everything — she’s a great administrator, a great source of support, and a strong person.
The other highlight was peer-learning. We, the batch of 1971, were an extraordinary batch. When MMC completed 175 years about five years ago, the college officially declared us as its best batch. An independent committee compared batches in terms of sports, awards (such as Padma Shri), publications, research, academics, how many became professors or vice-chancellors, and so on.
Favourite mentor
Research was my passion from the first year at MMC, so while I gave up many other things, I continued to do research. Some of my teachers used to say, “Why waste time on research, as though you’re going to get a Nobel Prize? Are you going to be a doctor or a researcher?” But some others helped, guided and inspired me. One such teacher was Dr. Lalitha Kameshwaran.
She was a professor at MMC, and later became our vice-chancellor and my Ph.D. supervisor. She gave me and a couple of other classmates a lab to use during the holidays when everyone went home. We stayed behind doing experiments. She blindly trusted us with the lab.
Advice to students
Do things you like to do, not just for a position or a title, but because you love doing them. And that might require you to give up some other things where you are not contributing, or getting anything out of it. You must prioritise and learn what you want to do, and focus on it. Then, you can do it well.