Sargur

Written by Morgan Gilani, MD PGY2 at San Francisco Internal Medicine on a Global Health rotation in Sargur, India with the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement.

Gratitude.  My time working with the Swami Vivekananada Youth Movement (SVYM) this spring has been an integral part of my residency training. I joined a group from Kaiser Woodland Hills which included mostly family practice doctors, some in training, a rheumatologist, a pre-PA student, and an attorney. We were greeted at the airport in Bangalore and quickly whisked off to Mysore, currently ranked the cleanest city in India on a very hot and humid Sunday morning at 4 AM. Our visit in Mysore was brief and only a layover on our journey farther south to Sargur.  However, during our brief day and a half, we were very graciously introduced to SVYM, its main campus, and had the honor of meeting with two of the doctors who had founded the NGO about 30 years ago including Dr. Balasurbramaniam, or as he shortens- Dr. Balu. What started as a 9 bed hospital on the forest’s edge outside of Sargur has grown into a 90 bed hospital with subspecialty care. The populations served includes rural and 5 different tribal communities which have been displaced from the forest, now two National Reserves. In their longitudinal involvement and growth over the past 30 years in working with these communities it was interesting to