I started practising in 1974, and I first went onto the radio in 1980, on a multicultural station in Sydney. Then in 2000, we started the health segment on community TV. I realised there are a lot of questions my patients would like to ask that they won’t bring up in a consult. Sometimes it is because they are too shy or they worry about time. So in the program, I took the role of the patient, and I would ask the specialists about different diseases and how they would treat them. I’m from Mumbai, and the program was in our local Marathi language, but when the specialists came on, we obviously had to do those segments in English. Going on the radio was a bit challenging in the beginning. Once you get started, it’s okay, but when you first sit down to answer the questions, your heart rate goes up and you start sweating, irrespective of how many years you have done it. Even now, it still happens. Once the mic is in front of you, you realise there are hundreds of people listening and worry that everything you say has to be correct. I’ve even broadcast walking the City2Surf running course to give the audience information about how important it is to walk and keep yourself fit.

Dr Purushottam Sawrikar
Sydney, NSW