The passing away of Deshmanya Dr. Surendra Ramachandran, a gentleman leader of the medical profession and our friend, has left a void in the medical field.
He was a brilliant product of the then only medical faculty in Colombo of the University of Ceylon. He sailed through his postgraduate examinations in medicine locally and abroad with consummate ease.
As a consultant physician in the state health service he pioneered research in many areas of medicine including kidney disease. His interest in the latter made him donate a prize for the best paper in nephrology at the Annual Scientific Sessions of the Sri Lanka Medical Association.
He was one of the pioneers who were responsible for the establishment of the Medical Intensive Care Unit at the General Hospital Colombo in the early 1980s, when I was its Director.
He served the Sri Lanka Medical Association in many capacities including President. During his tenure as President, he was responsible for the inauguration of the Annual Foundation Sessions and the E.M.Wijerama Endowment Lecture. Among many orations he delivered was the second E. M. Wijerama Endowment Lecture where he spoke on kidney disease in Sri Lanka.
Dr. Ramachandran was also President of the Ceylon College of Physicians.
He was a devout Hindu. He and his wife Nirmala travelled extensively visiting Hindu and Buddhist sacred places locally and abroad.
He was a much sought after teacher by medical under-graduates and post-graduates.
His knowledge, simplicity and straightforwardness attracted them to him.
He was very kind and soft-spoken to the rich and the poor. The main quality I will remember about him was his humility and kindness.
Dr. Lucian Jayasuriya,
Past President, Sri Lanka,
Medical Association |
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