Prof Baldev Singh Oration Award of APPI
Professor Baldev Singh is fondly remembered by Neurologists and Physiologists as “Father Neuron” in his honour for laying the foundation of neurosciences in India along with fellow Physicians and Scientists.
After obtaining graduate degree in 1927 for King Edward Medical College, Lahore, he proceeded to England for obtaining MRCP. On returning to India, he was offered a number of job opportunities which he declined in order to stay in Amritsar as his mother’s desired. His clinical acumen and academic bent, soon make him one of the most sought after and highly successful private practitioner. Despite his roaring private practice, he continued to be attracted to and engaged with academics and research. After 18 years of private practice, he chose to join Prof Jacob Chandy, India’s first qualified Neurosurgeon, at CMC Vellore in 1951. Prof Baldev was interested in EEG and at behest of Prof Chandy, went to Chicago to learn EEG from Dr H Gibbs. The team of Prof Baldev Singh and Prof Jacob Chandy, laid foundations of Clinical Neurology and Neurophysiology in India.
He moved to Delhi, at request of his teacher to join Tirath Ram Hospital and restricted his practice to Neurology. However, his intrinsic desire for academics kept him attached to Lady Harding Medical College in Honorary capacity. In LHMC, he got acquainted with Prof B K Anand and in 1965 at age of 61, he was asked to take responsibility of then new established department of Neurology at AIIMS.
Prof Baldev Singh formally retired in 1968 to continue as Emeritus Professor in Department of Physiology. He continued his engagement with Departments of Physiology and Neurosurgery and participating in academics and research, a joy that kept him going for more than two decades, till the physical limitation of age could up with him and he left AIIMS at 1992 at the age of 86 years.
Prof P N Tandon, an institution himself, spoke of Baldev Singh “Prof. Baldev Singh had become a legend in his life-time and has left a permanent imprint on the neuroscience scenario of the country. It is no exaggeration to say that few could match the depth of his knowledge or his untiring commitment to advance the frontiers of neuroscience in the country. Yet for all his accomplishments, he remained a gentle soul, a friend to all without a trace of ill will for anyone.” Prof. Baldev Singh was a multifaceted self-effacing personality – a mild-mannered, dignified, highly cultured, and principled gentleman in the classical mould. Undoubtedly, the most well-read physician, with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, who even to his last days, though nearly blind, continued to keep up with the current literature with the help of his daughter-in-law.
He was a recipient of a large number of awards and honours. He is the only person to be elected twice – in 1962 and 1971 – as the President of the Neurological Society of India. He was conferred the Basanti Devi Amirchand Award by the Indian Council for Medical Research (1961); Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee Award; Sir Nilratan Sircar Oration (1960); and National Academy of Medical Science Oration (1965). He was a Fellow of the National Academy of Medical Science (FAMS) and of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA). He was an Honorary Fellow of the Aeromedical Society of India and the American Neurological Association. He was conferred the honorary rank of Brigadier by the Indian Army, was Honorary Physician to the President of India, and was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1972.
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