THE autobiography of one of Malaysia's prominent cardiologists, Dr Kannan Pasamanickam, entitled Joy, Challenges and Hope: My Life Journey, revolves around the theme of "hope and optimism". He says that without the two driving forces, "none of us will be able to overcome the challenges that life throws on us", and enjoy its fruits.
His early life challenges and hopes were enacted in Muar, a pre-colonial historical settlement that later emerged as an important small town in the colonial and post-colonial era. Muar is located in Peninsular Malaysia's southern state of Johor, where Dr Kannan was born in 1952. Muar's legacy, like many other small towns in the colonial and early post-colonial era, was a showcase of a multiracial society.
As Dr Kannan succinctly points out: "Our neighbourhood represented a microcosm of the fabric of Malaysian society… In good times, we joyfully celebrated together; and during times of adversity, we supported our neighbours unconditionally. That has been the zenith of the era of multiracial Malaya, which went on to become Malaysia."
A familiar political and social legacy that was primarily rooted in, and shaped by the British colonial state, to facilitate the capitalist exploitation of the country's natural resources and the accumulation of capital at the metropolitan centre.
With a few exceptions, namely Syed Husin Ali's Memoirs of a Political Struggle that anchored on Johor's Batu Pahat, or Balan Moses' Brickfields and Beyond: Stories from the Past, and Ho Tak Ming's Ipoh: When Tin Was King, Malaysian writers have, by and large, paid scant attention to the legacy of the rich ethnography of our cosmopolitan small-town towns.
Dr Kannan's detailed narrative highlights how his twin pillars of hope and optimism, imbibed and embedded from the social milieu of small town Muar, had enabled him to achieve much of what he set out to do within the larger macrocosm of the country's social setting.
Thus, with the tenacity of hope and optimism, he was able to navigate through the limited opportunities and challenges to catapult himself not only as a prominent and much sought-after clinical cardiologist and medical teacher, but also as an accomplished amateur gardener through his regular articles in the local media.
At the age of 65, Dr Kannan was afflicted with myeloma, a life-threatening ailment that he fought with immense faith in God, and emotional support from members of the immediate and extended family, particularly his wife Anjalai, his children Arun and Mallini, sister Sunthari and close friends.
He was successfully treated and cured with help from his medical colleagues. This second lease in life has enabled Dr Kannan to continue leading a productive social and professional career, as well as to continuing his first love — serving his patients.
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL ENRICHMENT
Dr Kannan's logical blend of hope and optimism, combined with the rich social, cultural and high-quality educational setting of his small hometown of Muar, has served him well to enable him to become somebody from nobody. Thus, his life-storyline is enriched through a wealth of lived-experiences and challenges, combining success with joy and urgings of the spirit.
Born into a conservative, middle-class, patriarchal and religious family, his hope and successes in every dimension of life was, to a large extent, shaped by his humble, caring, hard-working and frugal parents.
His father believed, like many others of his generation, in property investments and setting aside what little he could for a rainy day.
Dr Kannan further attributes his success to a circle of close-knit relatives, as well as to his Muar coterie of close friends, besides the enduring community ties across the racial and religious divide. They were his role models.
Not to forget his dedicated teachers at the highly disciplined Saint Andrews's primary and secondary Catholic schools, in particular Brother Robert O' Sullivan of the secondary level, a legendary disciplinarian who "never spared the rod to spoil the child"; thereby earning himself the epithet of "White Ghost".
It is no wonder then that the school hardly experienced any major disciplinary problems. Besides, Brother Robert was an efficient headmaster and a passionate English teacher.
Under his leadership, St Andrews provided one of the best all-rounded education programmes and extracurricular activities in the country. Besides this, he "emphasised the importance of clear hand writing, proper sentence construction and diction".
Brother Robert's passionate teaching of English and grounding in diction had its lifelong rewards. It stood in good stead for many of Dr Kannan's schoolmates and for himself in their future education and professional careers, both locally and internationally.
Dr Kannan says: "It laid the foundation for elocution skills, which served me well as a debater in secondary school and college, and as a lecturer in the university and during academic meetings locally and internationally."
On completion of his Senior Cambridge examinations, Dr Kannan was enrolled as a hostelite in one of the country's prestigious schools — the English College in Johor Baru — to pursue his Sixth-Form education.
Relieved from his mother's apron strings, Dr Kannan was hoisted onto a fairly regimented hostel life for the next two years. This, and the demanding curriculum at the English College didn't deter him from building a network of close-knit, joyful relationship with his classmates and teachers, including his first relationship with a girl, which wasn't fated to last.
MEDICINE A PUBLIC GOOD
Dr Kannan's aspiration was to become a medical doctor. In 1973, he was overjoyed to gain admission as a pioneer batch into the country's prestigious medical school at the University of Malaya.
In particular, the establishment of the University of Malaya's medical faculty was a boost to the country's education and, in general, it helped to uplift the provision of better health facilities and professional services to the country's population at large.
The school's foundation dean was Dr Thamboo John Danaraj or "TJD", a legendary educator who later became a Tan Sri: a gifted, inspiring teacher and a brilliant clinician, who simplified the complexity of medicine and made it very interesting.
As Dr Kannan points out, TJD's "love for his students was measured in the amount of discipline he instilled in us".
Dr Kannan says that although Dr Danaraj had passed away many years ago, he remains a huge source of inspiration in his life just as he is in the lives of many of his course mates.
For TJD, health and its provision are crucial public good for society. Therefore, he was a passionate advocate, not only in high-quality medical education and practice, but also in preventive medicine and social dimensions of the medical curriculum.
Thus, as Dr Kannan says: "The building of a medical school was a labour of love for TJD" to train a generation of both male and female doctors.
Further, in quoting Dr Danaraj: "Medicine to which we are devoted to is a special calling and a privilege granted to us by society" and "is a lifelong course" as the knowledge is continuously progressing. Thus, TJD's advice to the medical fraternity was to continuously update their knowledge and diagnostic skills, to ensure that patients are given the best care with humility and compassion, as well as winning their confidence and respect.
Apart from this, his deep-rooted personal philosophy was "that the transfer of skills and knowledge in medicine should not be done for a fee". Thus, TJD "abhorred private practice". Without mincing his words, he exclaimed that "private practice is the prostitution of medicine".
Dr Kannan says that "the University of Malaya medical school in its heyday was one of the best (public) medical schools in the region".
Although his prime aspiration was to be a member of the much-coveted medical profession, he initially found the rigour of his studies very demanding and stressful. So much so that he suffered a nervous breakdown at the end of his first year.
This was largely attributed to TJD's reputation to underpin and demand excellence in medical education. Under his tutelage, the University of Malaya's medical faculty had built a crop of good, dedicated, demanding and inspiring lecturers and clinicians, who epitomised excellence in their respective areas of specialty.
This required medical students to indulge in a daily intensive pattern of study and practical work to acquire a wholesome medical education to serve their patients diligently.
One can imply from Dr Kannan's autobiography that apart from quality medical training and healthcare, the said training had also given the opportunity for many of them, including him, to proceed overseas, mainly to the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, to gain post-graduate degrees.
Thus, Malaysia has benefited greatly from an increasing number of specialists in critical areas of public health, including cardiology, surgery, radiology, anaesthesiology, neurology, gynaecology, paediatrics, pathology, orthopaedics and ophthalmology.
Many specialists, including Dr Kannan, returned to serve the country and its people. Dr Kannan served his alma mater as lecturer and clinician until 1994. One humorous chapter is dedicated to his recollections of interesting patients, and the life lessons they taught him.
When Dr Kannan joined private practice, it was a great disappointment to his mentor. TJD's primary concern was that private enterprise would not serve the best interest of the profession. To this, Dr Kannan agreed.
However, in his 25 years of private practice, he had upheld the TJD legacy, namely giving priority to patient care. He says that this "…should be paramount for the practice of good, honest medicine". His own life's motto was "Seva (service) with happiness", directed primarily for both patients and society.
Dr Kannan confides: "Life as a doctor is emotionally and physically demanding", and also an emotional roller-coaster. However, the crowning happiness for him is underpinned by the professional challenges and joy he derives from serving and treating his patients. He owes this to the phenomenal strides made by modern medicine.
In conclusion, Dr Kannan, who also played a role in developing the country's postgraduate medical training programmes, believes that we must place our faith in modern medicine.
Dr Kannan has committed to donate all proceeds from the sale of his autobiography to the MySkills Foundation and Good Shepherd Services. The book is now available at MySkills Foundation (03-2691 6363, 013-338 3036, myskills.org.my), Shopee and Lazada at RM65.