The 38th convocation of Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (SRIHER), Chennai held at its campus witnessed 74 gold medals awarded to meritorious students. The Chancellor Mr. V. R. Venkataachalam conferred the degrees on 1680 Ph.D., PG and UG graduates in medical, engineering and management disciplines and distributed the certificates.
Dr. Sanjay Behari, Director, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram and President Medical Assessment and Rating Board, National Medical Commission was the chief guest and delivered the convocational address. He outlined three fascinating lessons of science for students to excel – striving for incremental contributions towards an evolving work of discovery or innovation, focussed self-imposed deadlines of time to accomplish a task and constant training while visualising at the same time possible stressful situations on the way to stay away from negative thoughts.
Reminding that the history of the universe has been gauged from the simple rainbow through incremental research and that every discovery or innovation is based on and is influenced by the work done by the preceding contributions to the knowledge pool, he said students should not discord any idea but pursue with whole hearted enthusiasm to make incremental contribution towards its final conclusion that benefits mankind. Drawing lessons from the mathematical principles of physics, the fourth dimension he said whenever there is a task in hand some realistic self-imposed deadlines help you in reaching a higher level of motivation and also helps in completing it. The third lesson, he said is a recent and novel discovery in neuroscience – new electrical signals detected between dendrites known as ‘calcium mediated dendritic action potentials (dCaAPs)’. These signals show a graded response – they reach a peak at just the right level of input but become weaker with stronger inputs. This has several implications. Why does even an elderly person with a fading memory or a very busy person who is constantly forgetting things not forget the long-term relationships? Why does a seemingly formidable task appear relatively easier the more number of times you repeat it? Why in times of personal stress and intense anxiety or anger, the ability to think straight and make prudent judgements disappears? Thus in times of stress repeatedly training yourselves by constantly practicing the difficult task over time helps you to think logically as well as coherently and also helps to supress your strong emotional responses like anger and anxiety’ he added.
Earlier in her report the Vice Chancellor Dr. Uma Sekar said, ‘two MD programmes – in laboratory and geriatric medicine are being introduced from the next academic year. In line with NEP 2020, SRIHER has launched this year new programmes like Master of Social Work, M.Sc. Physician Associate and counselling psychology, two fellowship programmes in oncology and neuro-motor rehabilitation, B.Sc AHS (Hons) Endoscopy Technology, B.Sc in medical biotechnology, and health information management.
R.V. Sengutuvan, Pro Chancellor, Dr. A.K. Agarwal, Member Executive Council, SRIHER, Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr. Mahesh Vakamudi, Dean, Medical College Dr. K. Balaji Singh, Dean, Dental College Dr. H. Thamizhchelvan, Dean Research Dr. Kalpana Balakrishnan, Dean Students Dr. Leena Dennis Joseph, Registrar Prof. Roopa Nagarajan, Controller of Examinations Dr. R. Jothimalar, Director, Finance & Accounts Mr. J. Ravisankar and other Heads of Departments were among those who participated in the event.
