It all began many years ago when I did the Diploma in Palliative Medicine from Cardiff University.

After that our Hospice, Karunashraya in Bangalore, became the resource centre for the contact sessions for the diploma students from India and from the surrounding countries where the tutors would come down and teach at our place.

As the years passed by it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to take this equation a little higher or take the equation forward because we had been working with the Cardiff University Palliative Care Education Department for a long time.

Also the situation was very ripe for such an e-learning module because of the fact that the Narcotic Drugs Act was being amended and that palliative medicine was recognised by the Medical Council of India.

The government made palliative care a part of the national policy for cancer as well as non-communicable diseases.

So we felt that it would be worthwhile to have a learning resource, very basic, which could be available to persons who had just come out of medical school so that they could understand a bit about it and probably it would evoke some sort of an interest and a desire to do palliative medicine.

That’s the reason why we decided on this and it is absolutely fabulous that we had ecancer, you people, willing to work with us.

I do hope that the modules that we have created will serve as an interim to, if I might say, whet the appetite of people who are interested in palliative medicine and that they will pursue definitely higher opportunities for learning and that we will be able to fill the gap of what we have and what we need.

I think it has been a very satisfying experience and I’d really like to thank ecancer as well as my friends in the Cardiff team for the wonderful work that they’ve been doing all these years.

How important was it to create these modules in India with Indian experts?

I think it is absolutely important because of the fact that culturally there are a lot of issues which only people from India can understand and therefore can speak.

Some things, of course, are common but there are some issues.

Number two, I think the accent, to a certain extent.

Although India is a vast country and accents do vary but I think the people whom we have selected, by far and large, are people whose English can be understood by a vast majority of people in the country.

So I think that it’s absolutely perfect to have done that rather than trying to transplant the modules that, for example, you did in Africa.

That wouldn’t be a terribly good idea.

How important is it that this e-learning is a free resource?

The first thing which is really very, very good is that it’s free because of the fact that many times we think that if we put a small charge there’s always some sort of a hesitation.

I think it is going to be extremely important and I’ve already started getting excited because of the fact that this is just the beginning.

I’m sure that they will be able to do a lot of stuff, we’ll be able to add on modules.

For example, some of the myths about opioids and how does one actually use opioids.

Where can palliative courses be found?

There are going to be courses that are going to be started, like you have the MD in Palliative Medicine in the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences.

We have the MD in Tata Memorial. But these are all big institutions.

One of the courses that is extremely popular and something that I myself have done is the Cardiff course, the Diploma in Palliative Medicine, and then the MSc.

I’m very happy to say that, as of 2015, we’re talking about it now, that the Commonwealth Foundation has once again come forward with fifteen scholarships for students from this part of the world.

They apply and those who the Commonwealth have selected, they have no fees to pay.

The contact sessions take place in our hospice in Bangalore and the exam is conducted in Bangalore too.

So I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for them to get structured learning.

I think that is absolutely fabulous.

I do hope that there will be a few more institutions which will run fellowship programmes for those people but the Cardiff course is something which you can do without your having to leave your current job.

Obviously it becomes much easier, rather than committing people for a whole year or even two years of a full-time course.

That may be alright for youngsters but for people who are mid-career I think the Cardiff course would be the ideal.

Where can I find the ecancer course?

If we’re optimistic maybe by July or something of the sort.

These will be ready, they’ll go online and one can access that by going to ecancer.org.

You need to register first and it’s very simple, there are instructions given.

I think it’s a wonderful resource and we will attempt to see how we can improve the content, it might be we will give a link to some other resources that may be available for people to read, maybe articles that will be there.

I’ve gone through your ecancer website, it’s really a very big boon to people from our part of the world because of the fact that you’ve got everything, good stuff, online and it’s free.

It’s the best thing that can happen.