Book Review: ഒരു പോലീസ് സർജന്റെ ഓർമക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ - ഡോ.ബി. ഉമാദത്തൻ (A Police Surgeon’s Memoir by Dr. B. Umadathan)

    It was during my 2nd year of MBBS many years ago that I first heard the name Dr. B. Umadathan. The head of the Forensic Medicine department at that time vehemently hated seeing us use contemporary Forensic Medicine textbooks and always advised us to read from the textbook written by Dr. Umadathan. Our department head himself was a well known forensic surgeon in Kerala but it was quite interesting to see how much he admired and looked up to Dr. Umadathan. Since the majority of us had already purchased a Forensic Medicine textbook written by another author, we stuck with it and foolishly disregarded the advice of our department head. And now after reading  "ഒരു പോലീസ് സർജന്റെ ഓർമക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ/A Police Surgeon’s Memoir by the Dr. Umadathan I regret that decision. Not only should I have read his textbook, but also this memoir during that time. Undoubtedly it would have deepened my appreciation and  understanding of the subject and would have helped me score more marks on the Forensic Medicine Final Examination. This very much reminds me of a Malayalam adage "മൂത്തവർ ചൊല്ലും, മുതുനെല്ലിക്കയും  ആദ്യം കയ്ക്കും, പിന്നെ മധുരിക്കും", which roughly translates to: "The advice of elders, like a mature gooseberry, is bitter initially but sweet in the long run."

   As part of my new year resolution of reading and exploring more books written in Malayalam, this memoir was a no-brainer to choose. Being praised by both medicos and non medicos alike, I was quite eager to get started. Although I was initially a bit worried about my ability to read a 500+ page Malayalam book, the whole journey was a breeze. I was able to maintain the same reading pace as I have with English texts and the whole experience wasn't challenging at all. I think this was mainly due to the author's ability to use simple terms to explain even the most complex medical jargon. And this is also the reason why this book was well acclaimed and well received by everyone. 

  The readers are able to appreciate the author's integrity, diligence, and intelligence by living through and vividly experiencing the events mentioned in the memoir. Not only has the author done an amazing job describing each event in detail, the ingenious and tenacious ways in which he solved each case are worth noting. Being pretty much the founding father of Forensic Medicine in Kerala, the contributions he has given to this field is beyond measurable. Along with the clinical knowledge of a doctor and the astute intelligence and acumen of a detective, Dr. Umadathan also possessed a flair for beautifully recreating all those adrenaline filled moments with mere words. I was not able to put the book down as the interesting cases and the methods by which they were solved kept my eyes glued to the pages. 

  Like I said before, even though I regret not reading this book earlier, the experience and insight this memoir has given me is beyond explainable. Not only has my admiration and respect for the author increased, through his words, he was able to provide me and numerous other physicians with the acumen and critical thinking often needed to solve unusual and in-apparent cases. 

-Rithin.