Frederick Noronha
Doctors seldom make it to the news, except for the occasional controversy that arises. This is even more true in the case of the world of books, where you can only very occasionally come across a doctor’s story.
This has something to do with the fact that medicine is usually a slow-moving story. One which doesn’t fit the news paradigm too well. If a doctor is good or doing a useful job, the patients and those around know this. But this is a story which only emerges slowly, and doesn’t fit easily into the 24-hour news cycle.
The other day, my bookseller friend Santosh Bhate of Varsha Book Stall, at one end of the Azad Maidan, shared Dr Ghanashyam Vaidya’s ‘The Cassette Clinics Story’. It is an unusual work, subtitled “a sort of an autobiography”.
Late Dr. Vaidya, MS, who wrote the preface in April 2024, on the auspicious Gudhi Padwa day, gives a hint of his other work too. He writes: “At the same time, I gave full justice to my role of a Surgeon and remained a strong pillar of my mother Institute i.e. Karnatak Health Institute, and my medical-surgical knowledge helped thousands of economically backward patients in the villages; but that is a different story, not touched in this book.”
One suspects there’s another story waiting to be told here, about the growth of healthcare and medicine in coastal and North Karnataka. The region has done well in this field, bypassing other centres of Western-influenced healthcare, like Goa, even though the latter have a tradition going back centuries. Online sources explain the growth of the health infrastructure in coastal and North Karnataka in recent decades. This is seen as due to “a combination of public investment, private entrepreneurship, community involvement and policy support”. It notes that development is particularly visible in areas like Udupi, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad, Belagavi, and parts of the Ghataprabha Basin.
By way of background, the 1928-founded Karnataka Health Institute (KHI) at Ghataprabha has also come to be recognised as a charity-oriented rural hospital of long standing. It has been appreciated for its affordable care, strong community values and also quality training programmes.
But to head to Dr. Vaidya’s story. As the name suggests, ‘The Cassette Clinics Story’ is a mix of medicine and technology, coming from the then young doctor. Dr. Bharat Kelkar, MS (the author of ‘Doctor On A Warfront’, his book of experiences while volunteering to treat the injured civilians of Syria, Yemen and Iraq) offers a useful two-page foreword. He was the first person to hear Dr. Vaidya’s first cassette clinic tape.
That is what the story is all about. In 45 short chapters, Vaidya tells his story of clearing his first MBBS exams in 1977, and getting a chance to encounter his first patients.
“We could talk with the patients, we could palpate their abdomen, with our stethoscopes we could hear heart sounds and murmurs from real patients. It was thrilling,” he writes.
He explains the complications with auscultation of heart murmurs. In commonman’s speak, that could mean using a stethoscope to listen to the heart sounds, specifically to identify and assess any abnormal, turbulent blood flow patterns within the heart called murmurs. These murmurs are created by turbulent blood flow that can indicate various heart conditions.
Another senior lecturer had a cassette of heart sounds and murmurs. On hearing this, Vaidya was “thrilled” and “mesmerised”. He realised this was “the way” to learn heart sounds.
He quickly decided that this was “The Way” to learn heart sounds, heard clearly and with the teacher by your side. Yet, it needed to be listened to time and again, not just once. Besides, if such recordings existed, why could these not be made available to each and every student?
Slowly this idea took root. He got a gramophone plate with more heart sounds and murmurs from the U.K. This is a detailed story of how the idea evolved, and grew into what he called ‘Cassette Clinics’ (audio).
Some valuable life lessons here. We often forget what we learn. There must be better ways to learning.
All this might today sound like primitive technology. But keep in mind that this is the late 1990s or early 1980s. Technology is hard to access. Even cassette tapes are costly and hard to come by. Recording options are tough and limited. Which is what makes this learning experiment all the more valuable.
For those who lived through those times, this is a particularly impressive story. It might seem so simple to replicate today, but it definitely wasn’t. For one, the idea was fairly new and innovative then. Besides, the technology was an uphill struggle, as Vidya describes through his many struggles and solutions. There wasn’t even a xerox machine in Bombay in those days!
In this story of tech and medicine, there are also elements of drama. You can appreciate it more if you know what it means to struggle against the odds to get a solution. For instance, Vaidya books a soundproof room, and his voice suddenly goes flat.
With his cousin (Dr Gopal Vaidya from Margao) he struggles to access a Panasonic two-in-one tape recorder. His nephew Ashok Sawaikar has access to a Technics deck. Colour photography and printing was hardly available.
Vaidya explains that, unlike what a commonman understands, the word “clinic” refers to a medical teacher taking a practical class with live patients. This is done usually in a ward-side room, or standing around a patient’s bed in the ward. Likewise, his Cassette-Clinics were a form of case presentations.
Over time, the audio tapes shifted to video cassettes and then CDs and DVDs. The rest of the book is a story of creating and selling the product, and the many challenges it involved. Reluctance from the bookseller outlets, and the like. Five hours of tapes took a minimum of five hours to record!
This book is more than just about a story of medicine or education. It reminds us of how an intelligent person can work out useful solutions, even against all the odds. In this case, a far above-average intelligent professional (a doctor) could find solutions in medical education and more.
At some stage, the level of detail in this story might seem excessive. But, it reminds us of the human spirit, in the search for solutions. Besides, for anyone who encountered those days, this is like going down memory lane! Along the way, Vaidya goes into “medical film making” too. Dr. Vaidya’s bullet points make the book clear and easy to read. This is a book that would interest educators, and solution-finders of any sort. It is the story of the triumph of the human spirit. Even if technology has moved far ahead, the many challenges we face in everyday life will always be there. This is where a book of this kind does come in useful.
The 210-page paperback book is priced reasonably at Rs. 300, and published by the Karnatak Health Institute, Ghataprabha, in Belagavi. It has been published in 2025
