After stumbling upon a tweet about a few doctors from Madras Medical College’s batch of 1951 celebrating a birthday, I decided to visit these 90-plus-year-old doctors settled in different parts of Chennai, for a walk into the past. MMC Batch of 1951 reunion in 2022.| Photo Credit:Special Arrangement Some of the first women students of MMC, Mary Ann Dacombe Scharlieb, S Mitchell, D White, and M Beale, graduated in the 1870s, and Dr.
Muthulakshmi Reddy, the first Indian woman to get a medical degree from MMC, passed out of the college in 1912. As a college that documents a legacy older than Indian independence, there should be better archives for the same. Despite societal discouragement towards women pursuing Medicine, Madras Medical College still proudly boasts about their lady doctors who went on to become pioneers in many fields like Dr.
Ayyathan Janaki Ammal, Dr. T. S.
Kanaka, and Captain Lakshmi Sahgal, while also playing an important role in women’s empowerment since the pre-Independence period. Doctor Neela Govindaraj at her MMC graduation.| Photo Credit:Special Arrangement Dr.
Neela being pipped as 2nd Lieutenant in the NCC in 1958.| Photo Credit:Special Arrangement “There were around 30 women and 100 men in my batch, a 3:10 ratio,” says Dr P Chandra as she shared her experiences as part of the MMC batch of 1951, which underwent a meticulous interview process for admission. “For the first time in 1951, a panel headed by Dr A Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar selected t.