A University of KwaZulu Natal’s (UKZN) final year medicine student’s passion for medical writing has led to him penning his experiences at medical school.
The book, The Great Medical Student Odyssey: Tales and Adventures in Medical School, is a biography of Ashiq Pramchand’s journey at UKZN’s Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine.
The 194-page book illustrates his adventures and the harsh realities of medical students in South Africa. The book is available on Amazon and in bookstores worldwide.
Pramchand, 23, was in KZN’s top three when he matriculated at Crawford College La Lucia. He achieved distinctions for all his subjects. Soon after joining UKZN’s medical school, he developed a passion for medical writing while serving as a research placement at the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing platform laboratories.
Pramchand has published work in three publications – two Pulse Magazine articles, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and one with the Harvard Medical Student Review-Journal.
He said: “Thousands of hours are spent at the bedside and in the operating theatre. Blood will be drawn. Tutorials will be attended. Friendships will be forged in the wards-those democracies of appearance. You will see patient gowns, devastated and relieved complexions, tubes and IV lines. In this crucible, where life is renewed and taken away; we witness some of life's most beautiful and crushing moments.”
He details how profound and life-challenging his journey at medical school has been.
“These places are autoclaves for the soul, where pressure, high patient caseloads, and low resources purify us-they force us to abandon or challenge our vices, to help others. These experiences are life-changing and profound. In my anecdotes, I try to capture this profoundness… the clinical years is where the real adventure begins.”