From Calcutta to Wales – how a BIR benefactor started his career
It is said that when the young Prafulla Kumar Ganguli arrived in Liverpool from Calcutta in the fifties he had just £75 in his pocket. Quite a sum, when one considers that when Dr Ganguli first joined the BIR the annual subscription was four guineas.
It was Prafulla’s grandfather, headmaster of a local school, who was the inspiration for the young Prafulla to aim for a university education and a career in medicine.
He attended the Mitra Institution in Calcutta from where he went to the University of Calcutta. He trained at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta. He obtained the DMRD (Liverpool) in 1953 and the DMRT (Liverpool) in 1954, studying with Professor Bill Whittaker in Liverpool.
Most of his working life was spent in Wales at the Llwynypia Hospital in the Rhondda Valleys of South Wales and subsequently at East Glamorgan Hospital in January 1962, where he remained until his retirement in December 1990.
He was a member of the South Western, Northern and Welsh Branches of the BIR during his career.
He was married for 37 years to Manjula until her death in 1998, and he died 9 years later. His passion for radiology was the drive for his bequest to the BIR and it was his wish that the Institute launch an award in his name for a radiologist proferring a paper on arteriography and interventional radiography.
Read about the Professor Prafulla Ganguli Award
