Remembered Vignettes, forward by Dr. Tissa Kappaggoda.

 Extract from the book 'Remembered Vignettes

Photo taken in 200

Photo taken in 1960

FOREWORD

"The dawn of the sixties was a period of great hope and expectation for all of us, who entered the Medical Faculty in Colombo.  The middle of the decade saw the culmination of five years of academic activity, which took the form of a licence to practice medicine.  (My parents thought that it was more in the nature of a licence to commit medicine.).  The decade which began with such promise ended with a definite sense of foreboding.  The last years of the sixties saw an unparalleled exodus of physicians from the country seeking, if not greener pastures, at least a little tranquility to develop a career.  A few like this writer departed the shores at the first opportunity that presented itself, while others of a more optimistic frame of mind stayed, until the roof began to show definite signs of falling in.  The resilient ones who are the real heroes depicted in the pages that follow, stayed the course and completed careers of exemplary service to the country and its people.  Regardless of where one belonged in this spectrum, that decade was a period of great joy, now made even more appealing by the tendency of age, to blunt the hard edges of reality.  

The constant need to perform at a level just beyond one’s comfortable reach, the uncertainties associated with getting a “repeat” in the anatomy block or, the ignominy of being “fired” from a clinical appointment due to some minor infraction, gave us “fifteen minutes of fame” periodically.  Infractions, if there were any, were always due to either divine improvidence or sheer perversity on the part of one’s teachers.  There were no other possible explanations.  Always, one was assured of either a sympathetic ear in the canteen, or a tale about an even greater calamity that had befallen a colleague.  Such simple acts of generosity often turned a tragedy, to something approaching humor. 

Not surprisingly, the atmosphere was often charged with a supreme sense of the absurd, which made the events of the day fun and from this distance in time, even funny.  To those of us who worked abroad, our entire professional life has been punctuated by news from home, describing the devastation created by war, insurrection, political ineptitude and simple corruption which over the last four decades has been elevated to an art form.  Unfortunately, the latter is still a work in progress. At first, it was the newspapers and then the radio that brought news of such calamities but in recent times, the Internet seems to perform this task with even greater speed, possibly at the expense of accuracy and balance.  But journalistic “advances” brings no peace of mind.  Those who continued to work in the country had to deal with the realities on the ground and that was a task which required an almost superhuman level of dedication to the Hippocratic Oath.  Many of them did so by falling back on that sense of the absurd, which was such an important aspect of our lives as students. 

Philip has to be congratulated on undertaking the task of compiling these stories and anecdotes that give an insight into a collective experience, which went beyond the mundane business of attending lectures participating in ward classes and a variety of other academic pursuits.  I am sure he would join me in thanking those who contributed items to this collection.  In their own way these events provided us with an alternative learning experience, which gave us the strength to follow our own stars and destinies".    

Tissa Kappagoda

Sacramento

California