Re: MD theses sans acknowledgements

[Guest guest]

Dear SP,

A pleasent surprise.

Your had practically deserted this egroup.

I acknowledge your prowess in writing such nice article (and so well timed!)

You really are an epitome of knowledge !

VK Gupta 1976

Subject: MD theses sans acknowledgements

To: " MGIMS e-group " <mgims >

Date: Monday, 8 December, 2008, 5:56 AM

The MD theses, finally, are over. Focused research questions, great

introductions, meticulous methods, well-laid out results and structured

discussions. But what the theses won't have this year is their most

readable

section - acknowledgements. The section, guides loved to leaf through in the

close confines of their office. The section that boosted their self-esteem.

The section that created an illusion in their mind that they were an

embodiment of successful researchers, crafty clinicians and humane human

beings.

Now that the 1998 batch residents are all set to submit their theses to the

MUHS, Nashik, they would have to format the manuscript according to the

revised rules and regulations. According to the MUHS, a thesis should be

stripped off all identifiers: names, affiliations, and locations. The idea

is that a manuscript, stripped of all identifiers would allow an unbiased

and dispassionate review.

That is fine. Biases and prejudices do distort the assessment. But in the

process, the University has deprived the guides of the pleasure that the

acknowledgement section generated for decades.

Till recently, soon after the guides signed the thesis, and residents left

behind (a parker pen) and a copy of fresh leather-bound thesis on their

desk, the guides would quickly open the section that we were yearning to go

through. No, this was not results, discussion or summary and conclusion.

They were eyeing the acknowledgement section. They needed absolute privacy

to read this section -word-by-word. For, they expected heaps of praise

showered on them by their resident. And they were seldom disappointed.

What a wonderful series of adjectives the residents picked up to describe

their guides- " brilliant, sparkling, knowledgeable, erudite,

astute… " Where

else would the guides find those ego-pampering hyperboles: " lucky to have

been trained under him " ; " painstakingly explained and guided me at

every

step of my thesis " ; " was an epitome of knowledge, wisdom and

insight " ; " his

impeccable understanding of study designs and statistics helped me unravel

the complexities of medical research " , or " it was dream come true to

find

such a mentor " !

For several years, I naively believed that these words came straight from

the heart. Till a medicine lecturer shattered my blissful ignorance.

" Residents write acknowledgments " , he said, " a couple of hours

before they

take the manuscript to the book-binder. " Tired, traumatized and tormented,

they are no longer in a frame of mind that would let them write a creative

prose. The baby - the thesis- is out but the placenta - the

acknowledgments-needs to be delivered now. They need to design a section

that would deftly disguise their guide's whims, fancies, and

idiosyncrasies.

Instead, they want to paint their guides through the choicest of colours

and hues. So who do they assign this task? In the good old days, a clever

typist in the institute had a handful of ready-made templates – all that he

needed to know was the guide and the department! Fervently typing 60-words a

minute, in no time would he deftly generate an effusive acknowledgement, a

write-up that would make an impressive reading. Sometimes, the residents

would ask their convent-educated juniors to write flowery English. And now,

with the Microsoft word on their laptops, residents have discovered that

finding synonyms and paraphrasing the prose takes just a couple of mouse

clicks!

And so, this week, as I would browse through my copy of the manuscript and

try to find my way through the maze of graphs, tables and numbers, my eyes

won't find the section, so dear to my heart. The thesis, nameless and

faceless, would lack those two pages that every guide privately read but

never acknowledged in public.

Dear residents: do not destroy my illusory world. I will trust every

sentence that you write to embellish your text. Do tell me that I did not

acquire gray hair by a sudden flight; that my spectacular face showcases the

distillate of clinical and research wisdom that I painstakingly gathered

over years. Tell me that theses are tedious and irksome- even more difficult

than twelve labours of Hercules- and but for me you would have toiled

fruitlessly downward in the residency nights.

SP

- --

SP Kalantri, MD, MPH

Department of Medicine

MGIMS | Sevagram

[Guest guest]

Dear Kishor-da

...... & for the record remembering SP Sir and of course Vijai(whose mail somehow

reached my spam folder)....

I do agree that the art of writing the " acknowledgements is really going to take

the miss once this new rule is in force.

I somehow will miss the time and still remember with fondness the time when I

took my Thesis to my guide at GMC, Nagpur...Dr Meena Deshmukh... for her

signatures. I had already taken her consent for the whole thesis but, the

Acknowledgement,of course, was a secret till the last.

We were all grouped together, all the PGs with their Theses and the brand new

pens...No s for me...a simple Jotter would do the job.

I still remember when the word " Goaded " was misunderstood by my guide as a

mis-spelt " Guided " ...and I had to explain the use of a Goad by a Mahout with

reference to your's truly being a lumbering elephant and her a the guiding

spirit....The pen was also demanded back by me to write the exams with.....and

willingly got it..!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next PG in line was plainly told to come back after 6 months..(the person in

question was her 1st neice btw).

I still beleive that an Acknowledgement, painstakingly written and skillfully

worded, though not every-body's cup of tea,could circumvent some MINOR

hassles..............

Long live Acknowledgement

Sunil Takiar(76)

Subject: Re: MD theses sans acknowledgements

To: mgims

Date: Monday, 8 December, 2008, 9:12 PM

I can see that SP Sir's flowery letter has elicited many warm and

sentimental responses. I am sure that all of them are genuine. However, I

beg to differ by offering you a contrary picture.

This is the story of a poor little PG student from our batch. I will not

name her for reasons which will be obvious pretty soon. This poor little

girl was endowed with just average intelligence but to compensate that she

was very hard working.

Unfortunately, her face had that vacant look which romantic people might

call dreamy, but her guide called her " a cow " . Probably because of that

look, her (friend, philosopher and) guide took an instant dislike for the

hapless girl. Thus, she was relegated to all the menial jobs like filling

registers or going on field trips.

One fateful day, the poor girl took an extra leave without permission

(AWOL). The world knows no wrath more horrid than a guide scorned. From that

day on the poor little girl was assigned a daily duty of filling all

statistics forms. After that day, she did not perform EVEN ONE SURGERY! This

was her punishment for not taking her guide's permission for remaining

absent.

In her private moments, she would weep her heart out, but a PG student is at

the mercy of his / her guide, so there was nothing that she could do. I

personally witnessed one of her heart wracking sobbing episodes, and it made

me cringe at my impotence of not being able to do anything at all except

utter empty platitudes.

Her co-PG students, meanwhile, merrily went on buttering up their guides by

even shopping at the local market for them. One PG even took the trouble of

whisking the guide's coffee everyday, so that the mixture became " frothy and

nice " .

At the end of it all, our poor PG wrote her thesis. The acknowledgement

section contained the usual masala, There were glowing tributes to a guide

" who was like a mother " . If such be mothers, God help the poor kids.

Thus, at least in this case, the acknowledgement section was pure fiction.

If she would have been there now, she would have heaved a sigh of relief at

not having to think of patently false epithets just to conform to her

guide's bloated self image.

Thus, I feel that if that section is done away with, that is good riddance

of a basically useless thing, and, as in the above case, a painful process.

Kishore Shah 1974

Notes:

1. This is not to say that guides as a tribe are monsters. This may be a

stray incident.

2. Though this story is absolutely true (and Mukund will back me up here) I

have changed certain information to prevent identification of anybody.

3. The true measure of how a guide has helped his / her students is best

reflected from how he is treated by his ex-students after the PG degree has

been awarded. That alone is the yard stick, and no amount of glorious words

in the acknowledgement section can make up for it.

Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to

http://messenger.yahoo.com/invite/

[Guest guest]

Yes Shyam, I knew VRV smoked, but not a whole pack in a few minutes :-D

At that time even I used to smoke, but never in the hospital ;-)

I have up smoking about 10 years (or more) ago!

Ravin '82

[Guest guest]

I had the privilege of being the first PG student of Dr S K T Jain sir( ENT),

and Anju was more fortunate to have SP sir as her guide. We really enjoyed our

theses, I had the liberty to have my innovative ideas and SKT sir had the smiley

nod to my ideas.... he used his knowldge, and the specificity and methodology to

work which he had learned from Chaturvedi Sir.......so I was coooooool .... what

ever I expressed in my ackno was from my heart. Anju had already concieved when

she was doing her PG......she was due before the due date of the theses...so SP

Sir had to rush her thru the theses.....so that she delivers the theses befor

the baby. He had taken extra extra .....extra efforts to see to it that the job

is done in time.He had really helped Anju throughout the process, from the topic

choice to the inference. She had also expressed her heartfelt feelings in the

ackno. I think ackno should be continued in the theses....

I aslo agree to Kishore for whatever he has written...it is the truth.....but

for some ....why the real helpers do not get their due credit?

Murtaza Amreliwala

________________________________

To: mgims

Sent: Monday, 8 December, 2008 9:12:28 PM

Subject: Re: MD theses sans acknowledgements

I can see that SP Sir's flowery letter has elicited many warm and

sentimental responses. I am sure that all of them are genuine. However, I

beg to differ by offering you a contrary picture.

This is the story of a poor little PG student from our batch. I will not

name her for reasons which will be obvious pretty soon. This poor little

girl was endowed with just average intelligence but to compensate that she

was very hard working.

Unfortunately, her face had that vacant look which romantic people might

call dreamy, but her guide called her " a cow " . Probably because of that

look, her (friend, philosopher and) guide took an instant dislike for the

hapless girl. Thus, she was relegated to all the menial jobs like filling

registers or going on field trips.

One fateful day, the poor girl took an extra leave without permission

(AWOL). The world knows no wrath more horrid than a guide scorned. From that

day on the poor little girl was assigned a daily duty of filling all

statistics forms. After that day, she did not perform EVEN ONE SURGERY! This

was her punishment for not taking her guide's permission for remaining

absent.

In her private moments, she would weep her heart out, but a PG student is at

the mercy of his / her guide, so there was nothing that she could do. I

personally witnessed one of her heart wracking sobbing episodes, and it made

me cringe at my impotence of not being able to do anything at all except

utter empty platitudes.

Her co-PG students, meanwhile, merrily went on buttering up their guides by

even shopping at the local market for them. One PG even took the trouble of

whisking the guide's coffee everyday, so that the mixture became " frothy and

nice " .

At the end of it all, our poor PG wrote her thesis. The acknowledgement

section contained the usual masala, There were glowing tributes to a guide

" who was like a mother " . If such be mothers, God help the poor kids.

Thus, at least in this case, the acknowledgement section was pure fiction.

If she would have been there now, she would have heaved a sigh of relief at

not having to think of patently false epithets just to conform to her

guide's bloated self image.

Thus, I feel that if that section is done away with, that is good riddance

of a basically useless thing, and, as in the above case, a painful process.

Kishore Shah 1974

Notes:

1. This is not to say that guides as a tribe are monsters. This may be a

stray incident.

2. Though this story is absolutely true (and Mukund will back me up here) I

have changed certain information to prevent identification of anybody.

3. The true measure of how a guide has helped his / her students is best

reflected from how he is treated by his ex-students after the PG degree has

been awarded. That alone is the yard stick, and no amount of glorious words

in the acknowledgement section can make up for it.

Be the first one to try the new Messenger 9 Beta! Go to

http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/win/

[Guest guest]

Thanks Murtaza for acknowledging that there are always two sides to a coin.

Kishore Shah 1974

Re: MD theses sans acknowledgements

>

>

> I can see that SP Sir's flowery letter has elicited many warm and

> sentimental responses. I am sure that all of them are genuine. However, I

> beg to differ by offering you a contrary picture.

>

> This is the story of a poor little PG student from our batch. I will not

> name her for reasons which will be obvious pretty soon. This poor little

> girl was endowed with just average intelligence but to compensate that she

> was very hard working.

>

> Unfortunately, her face had that vacant look which romantic people might

> call dreamy, but her guide called her " a cow " . Probably because of that

> look, her (friend, philosopher and) guide took an instant dislike for the

> hapless girl. Thus, she was relegated to all the menial jobs like filling

> registers or going on field trips.

>

> One fateful day, the poor girl took an extra leave without permission

> (AWOL). The world knows no wrath more horrid than a guide scorned. From

> that

> day on the poor little girl was assigned a daily duty of filling all

> statistics forms. After that day, she did not perform EVEN ONE SURGERY!

> This

> was her punishment for not taking her guide's permission for remaining

> absent.

>

> In her private moments, she would weep her heart out, but a PG student is

> at

> the mercy of his / her guide, so there was nothing that she could do. I

> personally witnessed one of her heart wracking sobbing episodes, and it

> made

> me cringe at my impotence of not being able to do anything at all except

> utter empty platitudes.

>

> Her co-PG students, meanwhile, merrily went on buttering up their guides

> by

> even shopping at the local market for them. One PG even took the trouble

> of

> whisking the guide's coffee everyday, so that the mixture became " frothy

> and

> nice " .

>

> At the end of it all, our poor PG wrote her thesis. The acknowledgement

> section contained the usual masala, There were glowing tributes to a guide

> " who was like a mother " . If such be mothers, God help the poor kids.

>

> Thus, at least in this case, the acknowledgement section was pure fiction.

> If she would have been there now, she would have heaved a sigh of relief

> at

> not having to think of patently false epithets just to conform to her

> guide's bloated self image.

>

> Thus, I feel that if that section is done away with, that is good riddance

> of a basically useless thing, and, as in the above case, a painful

> process.

>

> Kishore Shah 1974

>

> Notes:

> 1. This is not to say that guides as a tribe are monsters. This may be a

> stray incident.

> 2. Though this story is absolutely true (and Mukund will back me up here)

> I

> have changed certain information to prevent identification of anybody.

> 3. The true measure of how a guide has helped his / her students is best

> reflected from how he is treated by his ex-students after the PG degree

> has

> been awarded. That alone is the yard stick, and no amount of glorious

> words

> in the acknowledgement section can make up for it.

>

>

>

>

> Be the first one to try the new Messenger 9 Beta! Go to

> http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/win/

>

>

[Guest guest]

Kishoreda, I must say, I have to look at this from both sides because I now have

students writing acknowledgements to me. I don't get very flowery praises,

because the students seem to have decided that I will ensure that the

dissertation / thesis gets done anyway whether they praise me or not, so all I

get is around two lines about how it would have been impossible to have carried

out the work if it hadn't been for guidance / help / encouragement  (take your

pick !) from me. I have not recieved a pen - as yet.

 

I haven't used very flowery language in the acknowledgement in my thesis,

but the gratitude has been heartfelt. I still look up to Mrs Narang, both with

gratitude and respect - and as you mentioned, that is the true yardstick of the

feelings a student has for a guide, and of the stature of a guide.

 

Prabha'84 

Subject: Re: MD theses sans acknowledgements

To: mgims

Date: Monday, December 8, 2008, 9:12 PM

I can see that SP Sir's flowery letter has elicited many warm and

sentimental responses. I am sure that all of them are genuine. However, I

beg to differ by offering you a contrary picture.

This is the story of a poor little PG student from our batch. I will not

name her for reasons which will be obvious pretty soon. This poor little

girl was endowed with just average intelligence but to compensate that she

was very hard working.

Unfortunately, her face had that vacant look which romantic people might

call dreamy, but her guide called her " a cow " . Probably because of that

look, her (friend, philosopher and) guide took an instant dislike for the

hapless girl. Thus, she was relegated to all the menial jobs like filling

registers or going on field trips.

One fateful day, the poor girl took an extra leave without permission

(AWOL). The world knows no wrath more horrid than a guide scorned. From that

day on the poor little girl was assigned a daily duty of filling all

statistics forms. After that day, she did not perform EVEN ONE SURGERY! This

was her punishment for not taking her guide's permission for remaining

absent.

In her private moments, she would weep her heart out, but a PG student is at

the mercy of his / her guide, so there was nothing that she could do. I

personally witnessed one of her heart wracking sobbing episodes, and it made

me cringe at my impotence of not being able to do anything at all except

utter empty platitudes.

Her co-PG students, meanwhile, merrily went on buttering up their guides by

even shopping at the local market for them. One PG even took the trouble of

whisking the guide's coffee everyday, so that the mixture became " frothy and

nice " .

At the end of it all, our poor PG wrote her thesis. The acknowledgement

section contained the usual masala, There were glowing tributes to a guide

" who was like a mother " . If such be mothers, God help the poor kids.

Thus, at least in this case, the acknowledgement section was pure fiction.

If she would have been there now, she would have heaved a sigh of relief at

not having to think of patently false epithets just to conform to her

guide's bloated self image.

Thus, I feel that if that section is done away with, that is good riddance

of a basically useless thing, and, as in the above case, a painful process.

Kishore Shah 1974

Notes:

1. This is not to say that guides as a tribe are monsters. This may be a

stray incident.

2. Though this story is absolutely true (and Mukund will back me up here) I

have changed certain information to prevent identification of anybody.

3. The true measure of how a guide has helped his / her students is best

reflected from how he is treated by his ex-students after the PG degree has

been awarded. That alone is the yard stick, and no amount of glorious words

in the acknowledgement section can make up for it.

[Guest guest]

Kishore, its quite obvious that there will be some nice guides and some " not

so " nice guides. And in the true to life example that you have mentioned,

rather monstrous guides.

I remember one of the Jaspal Bhatti serials, wherein the relationship

between a guide and his student(s) has been highlighted, the poor students

are made to get the daily grocery by rotation and other such chores.

And in real life, here itself in Jabalpur there is one Prof. and HOD who has

her PG students assigned to pay her monthly telephone bills, mobile bills,

electricity bills etc... :-D and to top it all, everyone knows it :-D

Now, moving back to my thesis and my guide Prof. Yogesh Arora. He did more

for me than I did for him. Since we were the first ophthalmologists out

during those times, he had explained everything to us, as to how his

(personal) copy of the thesis had to be presented along with the

departmental copy, each with a nice pen :-)

Sewagram had not seen pens then, but I did take the pain to go to

Mumbai and get a pair of Cross pens which I presented with the thesis.

Ravin '82

[Guest guest]

Thanks Prabha and Ravin,

I am glad that you too notice that there are some other types of guides too.

Looking at the response that SP Sir gets even after everyone has collected

his / her MD degree, I should definitely think that he is the envy of all

guides.

However, after having said that, I think that we should definitely question

the necessity of the acknowledgement section in the thesis. It serves no

active purpose. I am happy that Nagpur or MUHS has done away with that.

Grateful PG students can show their gratitude to their guides by gifting

them Pens, Scooters, Cars or a pair of chappals -used or unused

(depending on the level of their gratitude and wallet), AFTER they get their

PG degrees.

In fact, there are some who hold the opinion that even theses themselves are

a waste of time, as " usually " no original research is done and many are just

copied and pasted. Some say that this is just a good preliminary exercise

for future research oriented studies. But that is another topic.

I have just one correction for you, Ravin. You are NOT the first PG of

Ophthalm from MGIMS. The first one was Dr. D.N. Agarwal (also called DNA)

from the 1973 batch. His guide, coincidentally, was also Dr. Agarwal (BP).

However, after that PG, there were no more Ophthalm PGs in MGIMS till your

time.

Kishore Shah 1974

Re: MD theses sans acknowledgements

> Kishore, its quite obvious that there will be some nice guides and some

> " not

> so " nice guides. And in the true to life example that you have mentioned,

> rather monstrous guides.

>

> I remember one of the Jaspal Bhatti serials, wherein the relationship

> between a guide and his student(s) has been highlighted, the poor students

> are made to get the daily grocery by rotation and other such chores.

>

> And in real life, here itself in Jabalpur there is one Prof. and HOD who

> has

> her PG students assigned to pay her monthly telephone bills, mobile bills,

> electricity bills etc... :-D and to top it all, everyone knows it :-D

>

> Now, moving back to my thesis and my guide Prof. Yogesh Arora. He did more

> for me than I did for him. Since we were the first ophthalmologists out

> during those times, he had explained everything to us, as to how his

> (personal) copy of the thesis had to be presented along with the

> departmental copy, each with a nice pen :-)

>

> Sewagram had not seen pens then, but I did take the pain to go to

> Mumbai and get a pair of Cross pens which I presented with the thesis.

>

> Ravin '82

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Yes Kishore I'm aware of that (not being the first MS Ophth. out of MGIMS),

thats why I had mentioned " Since we were the first ophthalmologists out

during those times... "

I should probably have made it clearer :-)

Ravin '82

> Thanks Prabha and Ravin,

>

> I am glad that you too notice that there are some other types of guides

> too.

> Looking at the response that SP Sir gets even after everyone has collected

> his / her MD degree, I should definitely think that he is the envy of all

> guides.

>

> However, after having said that, I think that we should definitely question

>

> the necessity of the acknowledgement section in the thesis. It serves no

> active purpose. I am happy that Nagpur or MUHS has done away with that.

> Grateful PG students can show their gratitude to their guides by gifting

> them Pens, Scooters, Cars or a pair of chappals -used or unused

> (depending on the level of their gratitude and wallet), AFTER they get

> their

> PG degrees.

>

> In fact, there are some who hold the opinion that even theses themselves

> are

> a waste of time, as " usually " no original research is done and many are

> just

> copied and pasted. Some say that this is just a good preliminary exercise

> for future research oriented studies. But that is another topic.

>

> I have just one correction for you, Ravin. You are NOT the first PG of

> Ophthalm from MGIMS. The first one was Dr. D.N. Agarwal (also called DNA)

> from the 1973 batch. His guide, coincidentally, was also Dr. Agarwal (BP).

> However, after that PG, there were no more Ophthalm PGs in MGIMS till your

> time.

>

> Kishore Shah 1974

>

>

> Re: MD theses sans acknowledgements

>

> > Kishore, its quite obvious that there will be some nice guides and some

> > " not

> > so " nice guides. And in the true to life example that you have mentioned,

> > rather monstrous guides.

> >

> > I remember one of the Jaspal Bhatti serials, wherein the relationship

> > between a guide and his student(s) has been highlighted, the poor

> students

> > are made to get the daily grocery by rotation and other such chores.

> >

> > And in real life, here itself in Jabalpur there is one Prof. and HOD who

> > has

> > her PG students assigned to pay her monthly telephone bills, mobile

> bills,

> > electricity bills etc... :-D and to top it all, everyone knows it :-D

> >

> > Now, moving back to my thesis and my guide Prof. Yogesh Arora. He did

> more

> > for me than I did for him. Since we were the first ophthalmologists out

> > during those times, he had explained everything to us, as to how his

> > (personal) copy of the thesis had to be presented along with the

> > departmental copy, each with a nice pen :-)

> >

> > Sewagram had not seen pens then, but I did take the pain to go to

> > Mumbai and get a pair of Cross pens which I presented with the thesis.

> >

> > Ravin '82

> >

> >

> >