Dr Anupama Sequeira Tops MD Psychiatry in State, Wants to Help Kids

Anisa Fathima
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore

Mangalore, Aug 19: Being a student of psychiatry is never easy, but what is tougher is racing ahead of thousands of others, that too at the postgraduate level.

Dr Anupama Zeena Sequeira, assistant professor of psychiatry at Father Muller Medical College (FMMC) did just that, by bagging the first rank in the state in MD psychiatry in this year's exams conducted by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS).

Daughter of Francis Sequeira, senior manager at Vijaya Bank head office in Bangalore, and Helen Sequeira, clerk at Corporation Bank, Shaktinagar here, Anupama did her initial schooling in Goa and SSLC from Sacred Hearts School, Kulshekar, before passing her PUC from St Agnes College and MBBS from AJ Institute of Medical Sciences. She did her MD psychiatry from FMMC, in which she secured the first rank in state. Her sister Apurba Sequeira is pursuing engineering at St Joseph's, Vamanjoor.

Awards and achievements are nothing new to Anupama. In her second year MBBS, she secured the second rank in forensic medicine, and later went on to win the third place in the Young Scholar Award in pyschiatry at the south zone level. She is also the reciepient of the Rashtrapati award for scouts and guides.

Surprisingly enough, psychiatry was not Anupama's first choice. She landed into it quite by chance, with no real interest in the subject, but gradually the field enticed her so much that she began to love it and finally decided to pursue it as her career.

Says Anupama speaking to Daijiworld, "Psychiatry is a subject not everybody can handle, but once I got into it I really thought I was capable of making a mark. And that's how I started loving the subject."

It is the challenging nature of her job that sparked her interest in the field. Says she, "As I said, not everybody can handle psychiatric patients, so when specialists in other fields give up, thats the point where we come in. We try to help the patients and their families."

But the real satisfaction comes later. "And then when you actually help such patients, you can see the look of gratitude on the family members. You realize that such illnesses can be controlled, and that is the best part about psychiatry. Many think that pychiatric illnesses cannot be treated, but when we administer medication and bring the problem under control, we also bring smiles on the patients' family members, and that's a nice thing," she adds.

She credits her success to the encouragement and support extended by her teachers and parents. "I have learnt lots from all my teachers in school and medical college and I am grateful to all of them. They have been my inspiration to be a good person, a good doctor and my guidance towards success. My parents have always been encouraging me and guiding me throughout in all ways."

But the road to the top was not so easy, and a lot of hardwork and dedication went into it. An hour or two of studies became a part of her routine, and towards the end, in the last few months when the exams approached, she put in as many as eight to ten hours of study every day.

Her special area of interest is child and adoloscent psychiatry, in which she plans to pursue further studies and establish her career.

Psychiatry, however, is not her only passion. She is learning to play the Casio keyboard, and among her favourite ways to pass a leisurely hour is playing carrom or curling up with a novel. And yes, she can also sing.

Asked what advice she would give to other budding psychiatrists, Anupama had a crucial point to make, "The most important thing is, we learn more from our patients than from our books. So clinical skills always help. I feel students should spend more time with patients than with books, because that's how psychiatry is learnt."

In Mangalore, though there are enough psychiatric cases, specialization in the field is yet to become the popular choice of medical students. Anupama says the scope is growing with some good doctors establishing themselves in Mangalore and really doing well. "There are a few good doctors, and given the size of Mangalore's population, I think they are handling quite well," she adds.

"But child and adoloscent pyshiatry is a field not yet explored, so I would like to specialize in that and help children," she concludes.