Platinum for Patell

The platinum scholarship, the highest prize in the essay competition organized by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in Boston, USA, was won this year by 27-year-old Dr Ruhshad Patell of Vadodara (Baroda) who works at the Sir Sayaji General Hospital in the south Gujarat city. In 2011 he had saved the life of a tribal girl, using the social networking site Face­book effectively to obtain the expensive drugs required for curing her, mentions an e-mail received from Rustom M. Daboo, coordinator, Zend magazine, the newsletter of the Vadodara Parsi Panchayet.

Dr Ruhshad Patell: social networking for health

Hundreds of doctors from 26 countries participated in the essay contest, the subject of which was "How we can harness internet technology to improve health.” Patell recounted, "When I heard about the topic on which the medical professionals were supposed to write, I immediately recalled the experience I had last year. It was a satisfactory moment when we were able to save the life of a 16-year-old tribal girl from Valsad, who was diagnosed with poryphyria.”
The son of Yasmin and Dhanu, Patell is the only one to have won the platinum scholarship out of the 160 winners of the NEJM contest which was part of the celebrations of its 200th anniversary. The young achiever has been recipient of several awards for excellence from the Vadodara Parsi Panchayat, notes the write-up. Daboo also mentions that Patell, who was subsequently awarded a gold medal by NEJM, was invited to participate in a full day scientific symposium that was to be held in Boston on June 22, 2012.