“Learn to be calm, learn to be positive …!” – Dr. Chockalingam

Q: There are some basic differences between other professionals and a cardiologist. As a cardiologist, you might have faced situations wherein you would have been unable to attend the functions of even close relatives. Please tell us about such situations …

A: If a patient phones me up at midnight and informs me that he is having chest pain, I’ll have to rush to his house or hospital. Delay even by a minute might lead to serious consequences. I am lucky in that my wife is also a doctor. She is a very good pathologist. She would help me rush to the patient. She would never express disappointment if our plans for outing get dropped due to some patient. I love watching cinema. In those days, slides, reading “Dr. Chockalingam, please come to the hospital immediately” would be screened in between the movie. I would leave immediately giving priority to my patient. Today, thanks to mobile phone, the patients are able to talk to me directly. Sometimes, I had worked even for fourteen hours at a stretch. I consider these situations as God-given opportunities to serve people. My father died when he was 90 years. I wanted to be at his place for ten days to perform his last rites. But the next day after cremation, I got an emergency call from Chennai to attend a patient. And, I returned to Madurai after giving him the required treatment. My father who had become one with the God would also have expected me to give preference to my patient only. That patient has fully recovered and is doing fine today. One midnight I got a call informing me that a high official of the Chennai Corporation had heart attack. We regulated his heartbeat with the aid of pacemaker. And, we had to do this adjustment on forty occasions. He lived for another ten years after the treatment. We can live for hundred years if we love our profession, enjoy it and learn to laugh.