UK honours NRI doctor with royal title

An Indian-origin doctor who helped countless young surgeons advance their careers has been honoured in the Queen's New Year Honours List with 'Member of the British Empire' title.

Dr Pradeep Datta, based in Wick, Scotland started his career in the National Health Service in 1967. Many surgeons in the NHS and elsewhere owe their careers to the specialised training imparted by Datta.

Datta established and funded a teaching programme to ease the difficulty, which many overseas doctors found in getting a place on a course that would help them pass the FRCS exam and its successor, the MRCS.

He continued to teach in Scotland and in India after retiring, but does not benefit financially from his teaching. Donations and fees are given to charities including Macmillan, Save the Children, and Women in Need, a colony for women with leprosy in India.

Thousands of aspiring surgeons from around the world have taken their first steps on the career ladder, thanks to Datta. Most of his students are from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who got guidance from him to crack the exam.   Last year, his training role was recognised when he received the Farquharson Award at a ceremony at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.

The three-hour exam in anatomy and surgery is reputed to be daunting for any doctor but especially hard for those who do not have English as their first language.

The high pass rate of those who have gone on his course is testament to its worth, and its success led NHS Education for Scotland to ask him to run the course in Edinburgh as well as Wick.