Hello everyone, I am Dr Krishnadas N C, Consultant Neurologist at Meitra Hospital, Kerala, India, a neurology super speciality teaching institute. I am from a small town called Shoranur in Palakkad district of Kerala state known for Kerala Kalamandalam, the home of Kathakali on the banks of the River Bharathapuzha. A beautiful place where many of the hit Malayalam movies are made. Nothing much has changed here from the 1980s except maybe the number of cars on the road.

We are starting the DNB neurology program at Meitra. Meitra has an excellent neurosciences team. Dr Salam, one of the seniormost and respected neurologists in the state, is the chairman of the neurosciences. Dr Sachin, a dynamic leader and epileptologist, is our head of the department. He has been running a very successful epilepsy surgery program, which is not an easy thing to do in a private setup. Dr Deep has joined us as our interventional neurologist. We did our DM neurology together at Trivandrum medical college. Deep was always passionate about intervention neurology, and after DM, he went for a 2-year training in intervention neurology. His presence will be a significant asset to our department. It will make Meitra one of the few centres in the country where neurology residents are given hands-on training in intervention by a trained neurologist. Dr Javed is our Associate consultant in neurology. He is my MBBS batchmate and a wonderful human being. He is also keen on intervention neurology and, together with Deep, is planning to start the FNB neuro intervention program. Last but not least, Dr Poornima is our lady superstar. She is a product of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute of medical science. A soft-spoken clinician par excellence, she is one of the pillars of our department. Myself is in charge of the academic activities of the residents. A vibrant neurosurgery team of experts backs us up. Our vision is to become one of the best DNB neurology training centres in the country. My dream is to see, one day, the first rank in Neurology super speciality exam takes up the seat in Meitra. Well, sorry for that, I always have been a big dreamer. We have two seats this year. If any of your friends or colleagues plan to take up DNB neurology, please consider Meitra. They will be taught well.
I was born in a family of teachers, of which I am the third generation. Both my mother and grandmother were teachers. Teaching was always my passion and first love. I wanted to become a physics teacher like my mother as a schoolboy. But destiny took me to medicine which I always believed was the best thing to happen to me. I did my MBBS from Govt medical college, Calicut and MD General Medicine from Govt medical college, Thrissur. I did my DM neurology from Govt medical college Trivandrum. I was fortunate to be taught by some extraordinary teachers in all these places. I know it would be an injustice to name a few of them alone here, but I cannot but mention four of them who taught me how to be a good teacher. First of all, Dr Alavi sir, for teaching me that you should love your students like your children. Dr Andrews sir, for how to plan to teach so that the students know everything they need to by the time they leave us. Dr Sreekumar sir, for being meticulous in the clinical examination so that students could not get away without adequately taking history and doing a physical examination. A good teacher teaches the student the subject, and a great teacher teaches life. Dr Thomas Iype sir didn’t tell me this, but by the time I finished my neurology residency, I had learnt this from him. Many other brilliant teachers have taught me, and the list is endless.
How I ended up starting this website and podcast is a story by itself.
In 2010, I had just finished my MD General Medicine and was working as a Senior Resident in the Department of Medicine, Govt Medical College, Thrissur. I took a class for medical students on how to localise blood vessels in an ischemic stroke patient based on clinical features. In 2015 I had finished my super-speciality training in Neurology. I was working as an Assistant professor in a medical college when my colleague and close friend Dr Roney showed me an audio clip. It was my old class on arterial localisation of stroke. Somebody had recorded the class from the hall and had circulated among medical students of other colleges. It was unedited, and the sound quality was not that great, but students had been sharing it with their juniors. Dr Roney’s daughter was a final year medical student in another medical college then, and when she came across the clip, she shared it with me. It gave me much pleasure to see that the class I took was still active and helpful to students. The idea of making a podcast still didn’t strike me. When clubhouse started, and I started to take regular classes on neurological localisation in the Neurology teaching club on weekends, people who joined later started asking for voice recordings of previous lessons. That’s when I began to think of why not start a podcast. The success of my old class voice clip gave me courage. That’s how the podcast ‘Clinical neurology with KD’ is taking birth.
In this podcast, we will learn over 12 episodes how to localise a lesion in neurology based on history taking and physical examination. The podcast is meant for medical students and makes them enjoy learning neurology. It hopefully will act as a bridge between neuroanatomy and clinical medicine. Medicine, paediatrics, critical care, psychiatry, neurology residents, general practitioners and nurse practitioners will benefit. For others, it will be a return to your good old medical school days, hopefully. Each episode will be around 15 minutes. At launch, we will be having three episodes together. Then one new episode will be released on the first of every month for the next nine months. It isn’t easy to teach Neurology and neuroanatomy without the help of pictures. My good friend Dr Prasanth Chandran has been kind enough to draw the images for our topics. Please make full use of these beautiful self-explanatory figures. I thank Dr Prasanth for the pictures. The notes of each episode are also available on the website. The podcast and online content are meant for medical education only and should not guide clinical decision making and treatment in routine clinical practice.
Last but not least, I have to thank my family for making all this possible. My wife, Dr Smitha, children, and parents have suffered the most in making this website and podcast in the middle of a busy schedule. Often, I spend my Sundays preparing for class or record.