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Suchel K. Bansal
Suchel K. Bansal, born in 1947, India, arrived in the UK in 1973 and was a consultant geriatrician
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About
Suchel K. Bansal was born in India in 1947 and arrived in the UK in 1973. He trained in Uttar Pradesh, India and was a consultant geriatrician.
Suchel K. Bansal was interviewed in 2008 by Leroi Henry for the 'Overseas Trained South Asian Geriatricians Interviews'. This ESRC-funded project at the Open University recorded sixty interviews with retired and serving overseas-trained doctors from South Asian countries about their experiences of working as geriatricians in the UK National Health Service from 1948 to the present day. The full interviews are archived at the British Library under collection reference number C1356. Suchel K. Bansal's interview is British Library reference C1356/04, © British Library.
Listen to Suchel talking about why there are significant clusters of South Asian-trained doctors in geriatric care.
Interview conducted by Leroi Henry, 2008.
LH: Why it is that there are clusters of South Asian-trained doctors in particular specialties? And obviously for us, we're looking at why so many people ended up in geriatrics, so I was wondering if you had any views on that.
SB: Well, the fact is that when the doctors from abroad came to this country, they came because the NHS badly needed them, and couldn't have survived really without their support. And the general practice was seen as a no-go area, very unwanted, and from medical point of view, very low standard and costs. So, the doctors went there after they had failed to achieve the post in hospital medicine. And in hospital, the overseas doctors got the jobs where the local graduates didn't want to be in, and the competition was less furious. And those areas were the psychiatry, the elderly care medicine, the accident and emergency during the years when I came, radiology. And basically, the less wanted, less sexy specialties, if you want to put it that way.
LH: And was that your experience as well?
SB: Yes. I mean, we wanted...we didn't know about the elderly medicine or the elderly medicine before coming to this country. And when we came, we of course wanted to do medicine. And nearest to medicine what we could achieve was geriatric medicine. But when we learned about more geriatric medicine after having worked, I think it attracted more to me personally as a positive thing rather than as a compulsive thing. But initially, yes, we wanted to do general medicine.
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Entry credit
Laura Owen
