MY JOURNEY TOWARDS PALLIATIVE CARE

Everyone says we need an inspiration or an incident that draws us closer to what we look forward to
do. I being a doctor, always brought me closer to caring for patients like every other doctor. It was
only after I approached Dr Balaji (Managing Trustee - Coimbatore Cancer Foundation) with my
resume and was offered by a job to work with the foundation and be the palliative care physician, it
took me by surprise and questions like what is palliative care, what do they mean by it intrigued me.
While I was on a path of discovery of what it means, I met PadmaShri Dr M.R.Rajagopal, the journey
of him towards Caring for the dying hooked me and made me what I am today. To work as a
palliative care physician I needed to undergo training at Palium India.

Coimbatore Cancer Foundation helped me in receiving the Indo-Canadian scholarship for palliative
care training program after which I took my training at Trivandrum institute of Palliative
Sciences(TIPS). Working closely with Dr Rajagopal and his team has brought in me the thought and
meaning of palliative care and how to care for the dying.
I had completed my course and was back to Coimbatore, CCF had initated project ARAVAINAPPU for
I was the team leader and our adopted village was Karadivavi where we intended to start our first
palliative care centre with the help of PSG Hospitals. Soon we started reaching out to the nearby
villages also.
As I was practicing what I was taught, I came across Mrs Mariamal who was suffering from CVA. She
was being treated and taken care of, but when we sat down to speak with her and asked her how we
could help her all she could say “I want to walk to the temple”. It might sound silly but the temple
was just 50 meters away. We, as a team helped her with a pair of slippers and a walking stand. She
was able to walk to the temple on her own and expressed that it was the happiest day in her life.
This incident gave me a sense of satisfaction and it was incidents like this which kept me motivated
and I wanted to explore more of palliative care.

I had heard of a master’s program in palliative care offered by The Cardiff university in UK . I Took
the opportunity and applied for it and also applied for common wealth scholarship and I was
honoured to have received it. I would be pursuing my master’s this semester. I am very thankful to
Coimbatore Cancer Foundation and Pallium India for this support in encouraging me to pursue and
explore palliative care further..