M. R. Rajagopal Biography 
M. R. Rajagopal is a palliative care physician from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, who was honoured with Padma Shri by government of India in 2018. He is the founder chairman of Pallium India, a palliative care non-governmental organisation. He is often referred to as the 'father of palliative care in India'. He was honored with Alison Des Forges Award by Human Rights Watch in 2014 for Extraordinary Activism. He has worked with government medical colleges of Kerala at Thiruvanathapuram and Kozhikode, heading palliative care department. He also received the Father Gabriel Chiramel annual award of 2018.
The creation of the National Programme for Palliative Care and his contributions to the amendment of the draconian Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act of 1985 are his contributions towards the medical field. It allowed millions to access pain relief. Moonshine Agency, Australia released a documentary based on Dr. M R Rajagopal's life, titled "Hippocratic: 18 Experiments in Gently Shaking the World" in 2017. M. R. Rajagopal hails from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, born in 1947.
While he was doing his first year medical studies, his neighbour was diagnosed with cancer and all the night he was screaming in pain. Though the family asked him to give any kind of medical help to relieve his pain, he couldn’t, as he was only a first year student. This incident left a mark in his mind. Yet another incident became a life defining moment for him, when he was working as an anaesthetist in the Medical College of Calicut. He treated a 42 year-old college professor who had cancer. He gave him pain relief to arrest the pain temporally, and same night he committed suicide. These incidents made him look at pain as a disease. He got moved by the agony of cancer patients, and later turned a Messiah for the Terminally Ill.
Published: July 29, 2018
Updated: July 29, 2018
