MY TEACHER PROF. T.C. GOEL - A LIVING LEGEND

 

 

Prof. Trilok Chandra Goel still remains one of my most favourite teachers who continue to inspire me and guide my destiny even two decades after his retirement and three decades after my post-graduation. He is a teacher who, by being himself, has taught me some invaluable lessons in life. He was always a class apart both in perseverance and in attitude and was never apologetic of his high standards, knowing fully well that those people who really wanted to be in his life will raise their standards to meet him. This is an invaluable life lesson, which I still see him living out and mediocrity was never an arena in which he was ever prepared to play.

 

Prof. Goel is a Hewett Medalist (1962) and started as a lecture in the Department of Surgery in King George’s Medical College, Lucknow, a position to which he was promoted from Chief Residentship by the then Professor and Head of the Department of Surgery Prof. S.C. Mishra. It was his single minded dedication towards the clinical teaching of Surgery that soon made him the favourite of every student.

 

His punctuality still remains in the Georgian folklore and his morning attendance always started at 9 AM sharp and never at 9.01! This would be followed by an impromptu class in which he would teach us an X. Ray or an surgical instrument or gadget or a surgical pathology specimen or an interesting case. In 10 minutes the message would be conveyed and in the next 5 minutes he would ask us questions with the sole intention of ascertaining whether his teaching has achieved ‘Antyodaya’. The Albert Einsteins , the Jagdeesh Chandra Boses and the Madam Curies  of the batch were not his only concern, he would not rest till even the ‘Pappu’ of the batch had also understood the subject. This was followed by a ‘Jiggyasa session’ and each of us had to carry a ‘Jiggyasa Dairy’ in which we must have noted a ‘jiggyasa’ or a question of the day, which we all tried to answer and differences of opinion were encouraged and ironed out. Then we were off to our clinical wards, fully charged for the day! For all those who missed the 9 O’ clock attendance it was ‘Garhi choot gai lalloo!’, no excuses and naturally no attendance.]

 

Throughout the hospital and college hours Prof. Goel, all his working life, was 100% immersed in his passion for teaching Surgery. Whether in his room or in his wards, or in his class or in his operating theatre he was always teaching students and residents of both MBBS and BDS streams as well as his post-graduates and residents. What was most remarkable was that when he was alone in his room he was either studying books and journals or preparing teaching material for his students. Those were pre-computer days and every material was written in longhand and categorized. These teaching materials kept on accumulating and provided him with ample literature to write countless books in various aspects of Surgery. He realized that there were no good text books of Surgery exclusively for the dental students and so poured in all his resources and produced what is today the best text book of Surgery for dental undergraduate students [KGMU Textbook of General Surgery for Dental Students (Theory and Practical). 2018, Wolters Kluwer Health (India), Gurgaon, Haryana. ISBN 978-938-79-6339-9]

 

Prof. Goel had a passion for Hindi language and has published many books of poetry, prose and satire in Hindi. He soon channelized his excellence in Hindi to its best use by writing the first text book of modern Surgery in Hindi, a book which is very popular in this part of the country [Adhunik Shalya Chikitsa Vigyan ISBN 978-93-5152-542-4.] Many books in various aspects of Surgery followed and he was not translating text but creating genuine and authentic content in Hindi for posterity. He would often call us, his old students, on the phone and ask us to contribute illustrations – photographs, diagrams, X. Rays, Ultrasound, C.T and M.R.I images for his books and they were invariably published with acknowledgement to the contributors.

 

My personal association with Prof. Goel goes back to 1977, when I was an under-graduate student of Surgery. But it was as his Resident that I first realized how much effort he was putting in day in and day out to improve the quality of teaching in our Department. He conducted my M.S. General Surgery practical examination and I still remember it was a Wednesday, the day after our Tuesday Emergency. With his customary parental concern he enquired whether I was still nil orally. It surely must have been obvious because soon enough breakfast arrived and Mohan, our canteen boy, called me in. I was first to finish my long case and was striking a beat on the bed-side table, so that I do not doze off. He pointed it out to Prof. Dubey and our two external examiners and said that “I think he is ready”! What followed was a 45 minutes viva on Osteogenic Sarcoma – its cell of origin, its varied pathology, the difficulties in histological diagnosis, clinical variations, radiological findings, treatment modalities, recent advances ending in the logic of High Dose Methotrexate with Leucovorin rescue. I do not know what the external examiners thought but I did not miss Prof. Dubey embracing the young Prof. Goel in excitement and pumping his deltoids.

 

After my M.S I got selected for M.Ch in Paediatric Surgery in K.E.M. Hospital, from where our teacher Prof. A.K. Wakhlu was trained but for some strange political reasons (a strike by Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors against outsiders) it did not materialize. Back in Lucknow Prof. Goel rationalized the situation and said that it was a Divine wish that I stayed a bit longer in the Alma-mater. Subsequently I became engrossed in Plastic Surgery training under the guidance and tutelage of Prof. S.K. Bhatnagar, Prof. S.D. Pandey and Prof. R. Chandra, but my association with Prof. Goel continued through the Thursday morning Surgical meetings in N.S.B( New Surgical Block). It is in one of these meetings that I presented the anatomical dissections and surgical cases of my ‘Island Tongue Flap’. Prof. Goel greatly appreciated the simplicity of the flap and later allowed me to do it in his patients. This research fetched me the prestigious Peet Prize of the Association of Plastic Surgeons of India.

 

After returning from overseas I continued to attend the Thursday meetings and in one of them I presented my first free flap I performed in Lucknow, a penis reconstruction by free radial forearm flap. All my teachers including Prof. Goel blessed me and it is because of those blessings that I was able to establish my practice in the cities of Lucknow, Gorakhpur and Moradabad. When I became the Editor in Chief of the Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery in 2009 Prof. Goel gave me an invaluable advice. He told me that if the science is good and the language is not, always accept the paper, rewrite it from Title to Bibliography if required, but keep the scientific research alive. Otherwise how will we generate Indian content and offer Indian contribution…… after all, all of us are not good in English! In 2017 when the Prof. Karoon Agarwal’s ‘Text Book of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery’, the 6 volume extravaganza started publication, I took the two volumes I and III, of which I was the Sectional Editor, to Prof. Goel. He was so thrilled looking at them and without an iota of hesitation I told him that it was he who had inspired me to think big and achieve bigger!

 

His unwavering dedication towards teaching and documentation is an inspiration to many of us. Not only has it helped us navigate through the gates of higher education but it has also helped me personally to understand that we have very little time to spare as there is a lot to be learned and we are just scratching the surface of wisdom. Time is the most precious possession that we have and he has taught me to spend it in the most intelligent way. I have never seen him sitting with other staff members in a Darbar and sipping tea or reading a magazine. He would always be there, in his room, in his desk, studying and enriching himself. Though today he is well beyond 80 years in age but his mind is still young and imbibing newer ideas and quenching his thirst for the unknown. He is busy writing a book of Urology in Hindi, and there are many newer ventures in his pipeline.

 

King George’s Medical University reappointed him as Emeritus Professor in 2015 and decorated him with the Doctorate Honoris Causa degree in 2017. His interests did not wane once his formal teaching responsibilities ceased to exist after retirement. With time in hand he became even more productive. He has till date published many medical and non-medical books which can fill a few racks in the library.

You can visit his Wikipedia page to know about him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilok_Chandra_Goel

 

He started off as a Lecturer in Surgery but has become an institution in himself and in his lifetime my teacher Prof. T.C. Goel is today a living legend!