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Dr.V. Shanta is a prominent Cancer specialist and the Chairperson of Adyar Cancer Institute, Chennai. Her career which spans over 50 years has been dedicated to organising care for cancer patients, and intensive research in the prevention and cure of the disease. Her work has been widely acknoledged with several awards including the Magsaysay Award, and Padma Shri.

She has been associated with Adyar Cancer Institute since 1955, and has held several key positions, including its Director between 1980-1997. She is a member of the World Health Organisation's Advisory Committee on Health and several other national and international committees on health and medicine.

Early life

She completed her schooling from - National Girls High School (now P.S. Sivaswamy Higher Secondary School) and Joined the Madras Medical College in 1944.

When Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy set up the Cancer Institute in 1954, Dr Shanta then had just finished her Doctor of Medicine (M.D.). She also got through the Public Service Commission examination and was posted to the Women and Children Hospital. She had to make a crucial decision and decided to join the Cancer Institute instead, upsetting many people.

For three years she worked as honorary staff. There were only two doctors - Dr. Krishnamurthi and Dr. Shanta. They alternated being in the hospital during the day and operating together - "we need two doctors to conduct operation - after 6 p.m. every day as the anaesthetist, whose fee we could not pay, could come only at that time, after working elsewhere."

The Institute decided to pay her Rs.200 every month and also offered her residence within the campus. So Dr. Shanta moved into this campus on April 13, 1955, and have remained here ever since.

The Magsaysay Award

It was an unexpected, pleasant surprise for the doctor when the president of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Committee called her from the Philippines to inform her of the award. The president said, "We have just finished the meeting and you have been chosen." Dr Shanta had no words to express her feelings. She just said, "I am honoured and privileged." She still has no idea who suggested her name to the committee. The staff at the hospital are exhilarated; they look at the award as their own, which makes Dr Shanta even more proud and happy. "The award is theirs too, as we are one family." Dr. Shanta has dedicated the award to the institute, saying that there "is a long way to go".

The award citation is worth quoting to describe aptly Shanta's service. It reads:

"In an era when specialised medical care in India has become highly commercialised, Dr. Shanta strives to ensure that the Institute remains true to its ethos, `Service to all.' Its services are free or subsidised for some 60 per cent of its 100,000 annual patients; travel allowances make regular treatments accessible to the poor. And through a volunteer programme called Sanctuary, the Institute provides hope-giving emotional support and counselling to patients and their families and to cancer-afflicted children. There are thousands who might say, as leukaemia victim Delli Rao, a wageworker, has said, `I owe my life to Dr. Shanta.' Seventy-eight-year-old Shanta still sees patients, still performs surgery, and is still on call twenty-four hours a day."

Inspiration

People who inspired Dr. Shanta were her maternal uncle Nobel Laureate Dr Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and her grandfather's brother, Sir C V Raman, another Nobel Laureate. "We looked up to them, and I wanted to achieve at least a small portion of what they had."

Quotes

"If we have grown, it is because of the grace of God, and our faith in our mission,".

"The journey has been long. I don't see an end to it, simply because our work is never ending. What we have done is very little. There is much more to do. The journey has been arduous, with bricks and stones and occasional flowers strewn in between, but we continue…"

"When the sick approach the gates of the Institute, weak in body and spirit, and full of fear, there is only one response, you have to become part of them"

"Every obstacle I have overcome, every patient I have cured, every child I have treated who has grown, got married and come back to see me with his/her children have made my whole life memorable."

References

• Interview with Dr Shanta - Frontline Volume 22 - Issue 17, Aug 13 - 26, 2005
• The 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service-CITATION for Dr V. Shanta

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