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        Most medical doctors today are facing the problems of onerous economics and an increasingly depersonalised and technically complex health care system. Today most of the medical doctors and students seem to be more engaged in science and technology than taking care of people. This ground-level reality poses great challenges to practicing humanistic medicine. It is therefore especially important now to value and reemphasise the intrinsic connection between compassion and competence in the practice of good medicine.

        It is in this context that we have to take note of the outstanding work being done by Prof Dr Krishnamoorthy Srinivas, (popularly known as Dr K S), formerly honorary professor of Neurology at the Institute of Neurology, Madras Medical College, and General Hospital, Chennai. He is the founder- director of the K Gopalakrishna Department of Neurology at the Voluntary Health Services, Adyar, Chennai, and founder-director of the T S Srinivasan Department of Clinical Neurology and Research at the Public Health Centre, West Mambalam, Chennai. These multi-disciplinary facilities have been set up with the help of public munificence and public grants. These institutions are standing monuments of Dr K Srinivas's commitment and dedication to the cause of 'Community Neurology' in Chennai.

        As a clinical neurologist and as a great teacher of neurology, he has displayed exemplary humanistic/ professional behaviour, apart from outstanding technical expertise, ever since he entered the medical profession as a registrar at Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, in 1956, serving under Col R Doraiswamy Iyer of the Indian Medical Service (IMS) and Col M S Rao of the Indian Medical Service. During the last five decades, he has consistently demonstrated the highest qualities of professionalism and humanism to peers as well as faculty and staff, and more specifically towards all his patients. I have always appreciated the following qualities of head and heart in Dr K S: Integrity and sound moral reasoning; respect for others from all walks of life; the ability to establish good communicative relationships; a willingness to engage in supportive patient interaction/advocacy; an uncanny ability to learn from life experiences in the face of adversity maintaining a commitment to the humanistic goals of compassion, altruism, respect, empathy and service; maintaining integrity in the face of difficult ethical issues; and serving as an effective agent of change to improve the health care environment.

The Hippocratic Oath, written 2,500 years ago, has been the keystone arch for physicians throughout history. Its clarion call to 'do no harm,' 'treat patients with respect', and to 'lead lives of uprightness and honour' has been taken seriously by Dr K Srinivas. Even the Jewish tradition embraces the same ideas, apart from additional ethical and spiritual considerations. 'The Physician's Oath and Prayer', attributed to Moses Maimonides, the 13th-century physician and philosopher, articulates ancient Jewish values and goes beyond the Hippocratic Oath in delineating appropriate behaviour and practice. In his prayer, Maimonides speaks about social justice in medicine: 'May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain,' acknowledging the potential biases of wealth, power, and personality as barriers to equal treatment for all patients. It is important that all practitioners develop both skills and values that reflect these oaths. In my view, as a practising clinical and consultant neurologist, Dr K S has consistently upheld these professional and humanistic values which only can give true meaning and value to human life.         Medical students when they are in the medical college are imbued with the qualities of idealism, altruism, compassion, and empathy. After they come out of the medical college, in most of them, this spirit gets depleted in a gradual manner.

Dr Krishnamoorthy Srinivas, a champion of humanistic neurology

        In these days of information technology revolution and knowledge management revolution, there is a growing focus on physician's professionalism. At the same time the WHO has also emphasised the public need for strengthening the interest in humanism and its vital role within the definition of 'The Professional'. There ought to be greater and greater pressure within the medical culture to include the art and 'habit of humanism' in its formal and informal curricula, and in accreditation criteria and standards. If we are to be successful in challenging the negative pressures from commercial and legislative interests, we will need an educated and vocal public to partner with like-minded professionals. Viewed in this light, the public at large should extend full and unstinted support to Prof Dr K S as the foremost champion of 'Humanistic Community Neurology' in this part of the country.

        Prof Dr K S was born in February, 1933 at Kozhikode in Kerala. He comes from an illustrious family. His father was in the Imperial Customs Service and retired as chairman of the Central Board of Revenue in 1960. Dr K S went to Doon School at Dehradoon in 1944. He recalls with great pride, nostalgia and affection, the great influence of four legendary Englishmen from Doon School: Arthur Foot, the headmaster; Holdsworth, the house master; John Martyn, the history teacher; and Jack Gibson, the geography teacher. The seeds of his musical sensibility were sown in his heart and soul by Shirodkar who was his music teacher at Doon School. It ought to be clear that the highest function of a great teacher consists not so much in imparting knowledge as in stimulating the pupil in its love and pursuit. By virtue of his long association with Doon School, Prof Dr K S has been made a member of the Board of Governors of Doon School.

        He graduated with Honours from Madras Medical College and General Hospital in 1956. As a student of Madras Medical College, he had the opportunity of learning at the feet of great teachers like Dr K Sanjeevi (general medicine), Prof N Vaidyanatha Iyer (general medicine), Prof U Mohan Rao (surgery), Dr R Mahadevan (surgery), Prof C P Viswanatha Menon (surgery), Dr R V Rajam (venereology), Dr Anguli (pathology), Dr Govinda Reddy (pathology), Dr Cooper (anatomy), Dr Parvathi Devi (physiology) and Prof Easwariah (pharmacology).

        In 1959 he went to Montreal Queen Elizabeth Hospital for special training under Dr Herold Griffiths, professor of Anaesthesia at McGill University. Under his guidance, Prof Dr K S learnt the finer points of neuro-anaesthesia and airway mechanisms viewed as vital components of neurological training in those days. Later he worked at Montreal Children's Hospital. Dr Preston Robb, the world-famous paediatric neurologist was his chief. He moved over to University Hospital, Saskatoon (Western Canada) in 1960 and had the privilege of learning neuro-radiology from Prof Sidney Traub; Clinical Neurology from Prof Allen Bailey, Prof Edward Ashenhurst and Prof D W Baxter. Referring to Prof D W Baxter, Prof Dr K S told me: 'My mind goes back to the brilliant association with Prof Baxter at Saskatoon. Don Baxter brought to the bedside the human consideration in medicine'.

        It was Prof Baxter who initiated Dr K S. into the higher nuances of neuro pathololgy in the true Boston tradition. Eminent neuro surgeons like Dr Joseph Stratford and Prof Kenneth Paine at Saskatoon also had a decisive professional impact on the evolution of Dr K S as an outstanding neurologist in his later years. It was Prof Pain who introduced him to the eminent neuro-surgeon of England Sir Wylie McKissock, who invited him to work at Atkinson Morley's Hospital, Wimbledon (U K), which was a part of St George's Hospital, London. During his tenure in London, he was trained in carotid and vertebral angiography by Dr James Ambrose, the eminent radiologist and later the co-discoverer of C T Scan. He worked with well-known general physician Dr Gerald Slot at the Richmond Royal Hospital, U K. He had a short stint at the Salpetriere Hospital in Parris in France where the eminent neurologist Prof. Raymond Garcin left a lasting academic influence on Prof Dr K S. While working as registrar at Royal Hospital, Richmond, Dr K S obtained the distinction of becoming M R C P (London). He also had the privilege of special training with Dr F C Rose and Dr Papworth.

        Dr K S is the first Indian neurologist to be elected to the Royal Colleges of London, Glasgow and Edinburgh. He is also the first neurologist in India to achieve the qualification of 'D M.' (Doctor of Medicine) in neurology or for that matter in any other super-specialty. On 20 October, 2003 at Sanfransisco, U S A, Dr K S was awarded the prestigious Honorary Membership of the American Neurological Association (ANA). This award was given to him taking note of the unsurpassed services rendered by him in furthering the advancement of neurological sciences during the last five decades. Dr K S became the third Indian to get this award. Before him Dr Jacob Chandy (Christian Medical College, Vellore) and Dr Eddie Barucha (G S Seth Medical College, Mumbai) had been honoured with this award. The crowning achievement of his life was his being elected as the first Indian member of the American Academy of Neurology in 2005.

        Dr K S is in the line of great neurologists of the world. It was Thomas Willis (1621-1675) who coined the word 'neurolog' in his pioneering work 'Anatomy of the Brain' in 1664. To quote the beautiful words of Dr Ian Carr: 'The peculiar glory of neurology is that it deals with the part of the body which makes human kind human, the seat of sleeping and waking, the harbour of love and hate, the secret of swinging a golf club, and driving into the rough, the engine which writes a sonnet, the spirit which makes each of us unique, the madness which sends us to the psychiatrist, the immortal soul which some of us believe we have—all of these have a local habitation and a name, if they have any such in the nervous system. Wherever it lives, the soul does not reside in the sigmoid colon. Neurology is about all these things and neurologists are the high priests thereof'.

        Viewed against this background, Dr K S is the high priest of 'Humanistic and Community Neurology' in Tamilnadu and indeed the whole of India.