A Fine doctor

ABSTRACT

I met Jonathan Fine for the first time in 2011. He was to travel back to Boston through Mumbai after a stint in Chattisgarh, where he had volunteered with Jan Swasthya Sahayog, the well-known rural hospital near Bilaspur. A friend suggested that since he was a doctor who had done pioneering work by setting up the renowned organisation Physicians for Human Rights, we should arrange a talk by him for medical students. A lecture was thus organised at my alma mater, the GS Medical College & KEM Hospital, where Jonathan spoke on “Why should doctors engage with human rights?” In his characteristic blunt style, rather than talk about his past, he exhorted the audience to visit Chattisgarh and see the severe inequities he had witnessed.