Prof. Nandadasa Kodagoda:

Father figure to all medical students

80th birth anniversary:

Hemamal JAYAWARDENA

"If these people keep on publishing these things in polgedi akuru like this, we will have an epidemic of suicides before long". This was Professor Nandadasa Kodagoda, about 15 years ago, opening the center pages of a Sinhala daily news paper and showing me a news report in large letters that referred to a suicide of a young man who had allegedly taken his life after a broken love affair.

He was disgusted about the newspaper sensationalizing of this unfortunate death to sell newspapers. He asked me whether I see any news value in this story, which I did not. He explained to me that although the break up of the love story was the reason for the suicide to the lay press, the real reason probably was that this man was suffering from depression. Because it was illegal at that time to attempt suicide, people were reluctant to come and talk about their depressive thoughts to the clinical psychologists and the psychiatrists. However, thanks, partly to the public awareness created by people like professor Kodagoda, attempted suicide is not a crime anymore.

I thought this flash back of my memories of Prof. Kodagoda would be an appropriate opening for this appreciation to mark his 80th birth anniversary falling at the end of this month. It is appropriate as, today too, we see newspapers and television stations sensationalizing reports related to suicides. The saddest part is that they do this even in the case of children - who we all know have a habit of emulating others. The recent second attempted suicide of a school child after an apparent incident related to a mobile phone which was followed by descriptive and sensationalized reporting of a first suicide following a similar incident and a knee jerk reaction by the authorities to ban mobile phones in schools aptly exemplify this phenomenon.

Professor Kodagoda's work related to the prevention of suicide has taught us that reporters should consider not only the person who has died but the many others who have had thoughts about suicide to whom the sensationalized reporting could be trigger.

However, brains as that of Prof. Kodagoda are no more. His death as Prof. Colvin Gunarathna put in his eulogy at the funderal, was an 'end of an era.' It was a loss perhaps not only for our Motherland, but also for the whole of Asia.

I distinctly remember that fateful day. I was on a holiday with my family to Kandy. We were passing Peradeniya when an announcer on the radio interrupted a program to break the hurtful news.

I could not hide a tear from my eyes. Realising it was Saturday, the day Professor Kodagoda usually conducts his bi-weekly Batahira Vaidaya Sakachchawa (Western Medical Discussion), I turned on the radio. It was a different doctor (Dr. Sudheera Herath) on the air. While conducting this program, he said that he is there only temporarily and that Professor Kodagoda will be back with the listeners in a couple of weeks - a promise he could not keep!

Professor Kodagoda was born to encourage young doctors. Many years ago, as a young post-intern doctor, I wrote to him asking for a 'corpse' to take out from the medical faculty to demonstrate an autopsy to some students who had never seen a post mortem before.

He sent me not only a corpse, but his post mortem labourers as well and we did the autopsy in the Anatomy tables in the institute. Later, sitting next to him as a post graduate student, sometimes overhearing his discussions with State counsels and other experts, taught me more than what I have ever learned from books.

Professor Kodagoda received many awards and distinctions in his career. The last he received was just a month or so prior to his death. It was a Doctorate of Science, Honoris Causa, from his own Colombo University.

Professor Kodagoda had his primary education at Galle. He was in an out of the Pirivenas and was very close to the Bhikkus. His excellent command of the mother tongue was perhaps a result of this. He won a competitive scholarship to enter Nalanda Vidyalaya, Colombo but had to get back to Mahinda College, Galle, because of the Second World War. Schooling back in the South was no bar for the 'Best Student of Ceylon' to enter University and graduate as a doctor.

As a medical student, young Kodagoda always remembered that the patients from whom he learned clinical medicine were the patients whom he would be serving later.

He taught us that patients were never to be exploited in any way, be it unreasonably striking or charging excessive fees. He was not a mere intellectual or a moralist as a medical student either. He was a good actor. Professor Kodagoda decided to become a teacher at the Medical College to serve the public more. As a Medical College teacher and public educator, the number of people who could access his knowledge indirectly was enormous. After the years in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the multi-disciplinary Dr. Kodagoda's switched to Forensic or legal medicine.

A scholarship to the University of Edinburgh in 1964 led to him being offered the position of Head of Department later. He was also been a lecturer at the University of Leeds. Although it would not have mattered much to him, we take pride in him being the first and perhaps the only Asian to be appointed as the 'Police Surgeon' to the city of Edinburgh, England.

He has been the Chairman, National Dangerous Drugs Control Board, General Secretary, Ceylon Association for the advancement of Science, Secretary, Medico-legal Society of Sri Lanka, Vice President, Family Planning Association, patron, Science Writers Association of Sri Lanka, Vice President, Community Front Against AIDS, Editor, National Academy of Sciences, Editor, Sri Lanka Journal of Medical Science and President, Asian Science Communicatory Organization. Professor Kodagoda was a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka College of Physicians. The Royal College of Physicians in UK also had the privilege and honour to have Professor Kodagoda as a member and fellow. The number of academic publications to Professor Kodagoda's credit is enormous. In addition he is the author of six major books. He has also translated into Sinhala four standard textbooks, of which the most well known is Sir Sydney Smith's Forensic Medicine.

He was a father figure to all medical students in Sri Lanka. He never made any discrimination based on stereotyping or stigmatisation. In addition to the Colombo Medical Faculty, he taught Forensic Medicine at the North Colombo Medical College, the University of Kelaniya and at the University of Sri Jayawardenapura.

Sir, we, who learned the art from you, play tribute to you on this day, your 80th Birthday.