A known figure in the medical education fraternity and students in King George’s Medical University, Dr MC Pant is teaching a batch of students much junior to his MBBS batch about a rather complex and heavily researched disease—cancer.
Dr Pant has a mission in mind and that is to make class X students learn about the causes, symptoms and treatment of cancer—a subject many of these students would get to learn about only after getting into a medical school in a PG programme.
His mission has gone beyond mere words. Thousands of trained school students already speak the language against Cancer.
So, here is a man who describes the logic behind teaching the complexities of a disease such as cancer in his own words: “One student of class 10 can educate 20 families. Thus, one day we would be able to control over two-third cases of curable and avoidable cancer in our society.’
Working on the mission was not easy when he started way back in 1987, as there were no hospitals catering specialty services for cancer and even academicians were not focused. Today, Dr Pant has a workforce from dozens of schools and thousands of students associated with his HEAL project.
He has several research projects and publications pending with him and over dozen volumes of patient education books on cancer have been circulated in hundreds of copies among students and patients. The book details the tough disease in the simplest terminology, prepared by Dr Pant.
{{/usCountry}}He has several research projects and publications pending with him and over dozen volumes of patient education books on cancer have been circulated in hundreds of copies among students and patients. The book details the tough disease in the simplest terminology, prepared by Dr Pant.
{{/usCountry}}Unlike his counterparts trying to nurture doctors, Dr Pant remains close to his mission to ‘educate patients and students about cause and remedy for cancer.’ He even manages funds for printing books from his salary and arranged sessions at schools.
“It all started when I met a young girl with mouth cancer. A worker at a mouth freshener factory, she was going to die and didn’t even know about the disease that was about to take her life. That incident gave me the thrust and I found writing educative books in common language was something I could do to make people aware,” he says.
Dr Pant is not only an educator but has also framed community health and training project for the newly formed State of Uttranchal.
The project shows way to percolate knowledge from college teachers to schools and in to the health system without much investment. That’s Dr Pant’s technique.
Several hospitals are coming up, specially for cancer patients both in Uttar Pradesh and Uttranchal after Dr Pant motivated the governments and investors.
The noble start made single-handedly has now turned into a major show in the state for others to follow the way of this doctor from the radiotherapy department.