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Teaching tomorrows doctors
A determined Dame Edith Brown went back to Edinburgh and to Brussels to qualify, so that she could establish a women’s medical school there in 1894 – the first in Asia.
Today, having flown in, you arrive by electrified train from Delhi or Amritsar to an industrial city of 2.5 million people in the heart of a rich agricultural plain, irrigated and lush. It’s the place with the agricultural college where the Green Revolution in wheat production commenced.
Now responsible for a complex and innovative medical centre is a governing body comprised of representatives of a number of Indian churches, educators and government representatives. Its primary aim is to educate and train Christian men and women as health professionals, in the spirit of Jesus Christ, for the healing ministry of the Church in India. However, like many other Christian educational institutions, the Christian Medical College also offers educational facilities to other young men and women irrespective of religion, caste and community. There are some 300 Christian hospitals in India.
Both high-quality tertiary care and training in rural health care are provided through a 776 bed tertiary referral hospital with a wide range of specialties and several rural hospitals. Since 1953, 50 men and women have been admitted annually to CMC, and they go on to post-graduate training in many fields.
The School of Nursing upgraded to a College of Nursing in 1973, also offering post-graduate Masters and Doctoral programmes. The Christian Dental College was established in 1992.
There is a Fellowship Department, with chaplains and staff who pray with patients on the wards. They also provide spiritual nurture and motivation to students, in conjunction with the students’ voluntary Christian Bible studies and camps.
There have been innovations in many areas: eye camps where careful diagnosis is carried out in the field, public and community health, and slum programmes.
More recently, state police have been trained to provide emergency care, and a fleet of specially equipped motorbikes achieves access through busy streets.
The casualty unit functions at international levels, and teams are sent to emergency situations such as earthquakes in Rajasthan and Kashmir, or to train crashes.
Many New Zealanders of different churches have served here, including Sister Jean Hanning, Professor Beryl Howie, Dr David and Rosemary Troughton, along with Beverly Johnston (née Armour), Elsa Hitchcock, Jessie Hamilton and Lorraine Saunders.
Volunteers and elective students are still welcomed. There are also two large English-speaking schools where there are opportunities for volunteers to serve. Nearby is the town where Sadhu Sundar Singh had his vision of Jesus.
For more information, check out
www.cmcludhiana.in
By David Troughton