Nagpur City has the history of 300 years plus when it was the capital of Gond Rajas Buland Shah Baksh. Nagpur was one of the major centre with capital even during British regime. The present Mayo Hospital came into existence in 1862 and was known as “City Hospital”. A medical school was started in 1914 in that hospital and was under Nagpur Education Board. It was named after Mr.Robertson the then Joint Commissioner of Central Province. School was conducting L.M.P. Diploma Course. At that time there was no Medical College for higher studies and the students of Nagpur had to go out for Medical Education. Nagpur became the important centre for education by establishing Nagpur University in 1923. C.P.Berar Government had made arrangement for higher medical education at G.S.(KEM) Medical College, Mumbai and Nil Ratan Sorcar Medical College, Calcutta. This facility was available only for 10-12 students every year and many students could not make it. Hence there was constant demand for independent Medical College in this region.

CONCEPTION OF GMC

The working council of Nagpur University had appointed a committee in 1943 to explore the feasibility to start Medical College in the Central Provinces. The committee recommended positively. But due to second world war these recommendations could not be implemented. As soon as the second world war was over, Government of CP and Berar had taken up firm step in June 1948 and requested Dr.Jiwraj Mehta the then Dean, G.S.Medical College, Mumbai to suggest a suitable location for the proposed Medical College. He studied various locations around Nagpur and selected an open ground (Present Premises) opposite Rajabaksha. While justifying the selection of present site, he said he had specially considered the population of needy and the poor residents around the area, which in turn would become the clinical material for the students of Medical College. The land was belonging to Lt.Col.K.V.Kukdey, the then chairman of Nagpur Improvement Trust who offered the land for this nobel purpose. Immediately within a short time the construction was started on 2nd January 1948.

ESTABLISHING OF THE INSTITUTE

The Government of CP & Berar had taken another firm step in 1946 to appoint Col.A.N.Bose as a Principal and was entrusted with the responsibility of starting the basic departments of Anatomy and Physiology. In the beginning, the College was started in the Engineering School campus, Sadar, Nagpur. The pre clinical classes used to be held in the same campus, while clinical in Mayo Hospital.

Col.A.N.Bose was M.D.,F.E.C.P. He was a man with vision, but strict disciplinarian. He was unmarried. That time there was no bungalow for Dean and he had to stay in Mount Hotel. He was always concerned for the development of institution. He was the person who picked up Professor Nigam and Professor Berry who became the teachers of National repute. He was very proud of his selection. His untimely death on 31t October 1948 was a great loss to this institution.

The first batch was admitted in July 1947. The students were admitted from Nagpur as well as from Sagar University. The selection criteria was merit in inter science grade and an interview. With the starting of Medical College, threats was looming for closing down the LMP Course, the students of 1946 batch demonstrated on the road for 7 to 8 months under the leadership of Dr.Dubey, Dr.Tiwari and Dr.Rangilal. Shri Ravi Shankar Shukla the then Chief Minister was convinced about the problem and the whole batch was transferred to GMC in 1947.

This batch was allowed to appear 6 months earlier to those who were admitted in 1947 directly to GMC. Out of them only seven students passed in the final examination and they became the first medical graduates of this institute.

An entrance examination was started in 1952, and very next year, it was abandoned. The degree course was of five years without an internship. It was divided in two years in Anatomy and Physiology, two years in Pathology, Pharmacology and Forensic Medicine, while the final year had medicine, Surgery, Opthalmology and gynaecology. The college got MCI recognisition in 1952. The internship was started from 1953 batch and it was 9 months in District Hospital and 9 months in village dispensaries. The teachers used to be very strict and had full attention over the behavior, regularity and sincere work of the students. Some of the teachers used to keep the record of the students.The record was referred during the examination. However, the examinations used to be for scoring better marks. The examination was objective as well as subjective. For many days, the examination used to be watchful about the dress of the students and were never allowed without full apron & polished shoos The girl students in the beginning used to wear 9 yard sarees as their uniform.

THE MAGNIFICENT BUILDING 7 CAMPUS:

The construction was started in full swing under the guidance of Lt.Col.A.N.Bose, Dr.Jiwaraj Mehta, Col.K.V.Kukdey, Architect Shri D.G.Karajgaonkar and Sir Sobha Singh as Contractor. Within a year, the nurses’ Hostel and present Hostel No.1 building was ready for the occupancy in the year 1949 itself. In the beginning the hostel No.1 was boy’s Hostel, while the students used to be accommodated in nurses’ hostel. The students used to go to attend College of Sadar and for their clinical postings in Mayo Hospital, Nagpur. The temporary barracks were constructed for the wards (present T.B.campus) and few wards were started in these barracks. The present new hospital building was ready and was inaugurated on 2nd October, 1952, while the college building was ready in December, 1952 and was inaugurated by the first President of India, Hon’ble Dr.Rajendra Prasad on 27th March, 1953, and within few days, all the Departments started functioning in the present College building. The whole college is spread in 196 acres of land. The building is three floored,(ground +two ) and is constructed over 84,000 Sq.area. The cost of the building in those days was only Rs.42 Lacs. The bed strength of the hospital was 800. The Government had gigantic plan of Rs.2,30,00,000/- in those days for only education and research to make this institute one of the best institute in India. The museums of anatomy, Pathology and Preventive & Social Medicine were one of the best museum.

LUMINERIES OF THIS MEDICAL COLLEGE

The number of giants worked untiringly for uplifting this medical college to the national level. They were Dr.Nigam from Surgery, Dr.Berry from Medicine, Dr.T.C.Wassan from Radiology, Dr.Mangrulkar from P.S.M., Dr.Sahastrabudhe from anatomy, Dr.Shrivastava from Pathology, Dr.Sinha from Pharmacology, Dr.Keshvachar from Ophthalmology, Dr.Narendra Singh from Physiology, Dr.Rozario from Forensic Medicine, Dr.Balkrishnan from Plastic Surgery, Dr.Devi from Gynaecology and so on. The credit of development of anatomy department goes to Dr.Sahastrabudhe and Dr.Shenolikar. In those days Dr.Hakim used to teach Bio-physics, Prof.Berry used to teach applied Anatomy and Physiology with a view to make these subjects more interesting.

PRESENT STATUS

This medical college is first centre in India where Occupational Therapy and Physio therapy School was started. This medical college had first Cobalt Unit in whole state of Maharashtrta. It also got the first C.T. Scanner in whole of the State of Maharashtra. It has the modern facility like Ultrasound 2-D Echo, ICCU, Computerized Trade Mill Test, Auto Analysers etc. but however, could not maintain the pace with modern advances in medical field due to various reasons.

Today, in addition to under graduation, the post graduation is available in almost all the disciplines. The students of this college are serving all over the world today. There are innumerable health administrators, medical scientists, clinicians and general practitioners who have brought laurels to themselves and to this institute. The name of this college is respected in regard to clinical teaching and clinical training all over the world. The clinical material is abundant at this medical college.

The practice of full time teaching was so much imbibed into the minds and bodies of the teachers that nobody thought of practice. The teaching profession was considered honorable. An evening pay clinics were started at respective out doors with a view that affluent in the society would be attended to. But was discontinued later. The full time system was so deep-rooted in this medical college that like other centres, Honorary system could never be established here. Many of the senior celebrated professors were hand-picked to establish the Post Graduate institute, Chandigarh and AIIMS, New Delhi. Medical Sciences is progressing continuously. This medical college had a glorious past and every student and teacher feels proud of association with this institute. We need to keep the same hope in the minds of students in generations to come. It has potential to develop as an independent institute or deemed university which will help it to retain its old glory and reputation.