Interview with our topper Dr. Ketaki V Gharpure

Interview with our topper Dr. Ketaki V Gharpure

Dr Ketaki V Gharpure did her MBBS from GMC Nagpur and joined

DAMS Pune Regd no 4518

She secured Rank 55 IN DNB Exam

DAMS: Congratulations on securing a good rank. What is the secret of your success in this exam?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : There is no secret. It’s just a product of hard-work and maintaining focus!

DAMS: How did your parents, family and friends contribute to your success?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : My parents, family and friends have always been very supportive and tremendously helpful throughout my graduation and my studies for all post graduation entrances. In spite of all the stress and pressure of taking a sabbatical to study for exams and the late nights and my erratic study patterns, they have always stood by me in all decisions I have made regarding the same.

DAMS: Who influenced you to take up Medicine?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : Being exposed to medical sciences even as a child, with both my parents being doctors, my interest and inclination were obviously drawn to this noble profession. Also, being an avid reader, i read ‘The cry and the covenant’- the life story of Ignaz Semmelweiss and realized that a small action can make such a huge difference for humanity. I also consider ‘The brothers Mayo’ a biography of the famous Drs Mayo as a major influence on my decision!

DAMS: We appreciate the fact that preparing for an extremely competitive exam must be really challenging. During your preparation, did you ever doubt your ability to succeed in it?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : All challenges have to be looked at in a confident manner, but one must be prepared with contingency plans and second options. Similarly, I never doubted my abilities towards giving my best shot at all exams that I gave, but always maintained a rational outlook and had my plan Bs open. My support system, i.e. my family, friends and teachers always only encouraged me to do well in spite of all self doubt.

DAMS: Which books did you read for the theory part?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : There is no better preparation than one’s undergraduate studies, if done properly. Some of the books I religiously read were, Love Bailey, Harrison, Robbins, Park and of course Gray’s Anatomy.

DAMS : Which books did you read for MCQ revision? Which revision books were the most productive and which were least?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : Volumes of previous ten years papers are a must. Amit ashish for surgery, mudit khanna for medicine and garg for pharmac are very good. I mostly revised with my class notes and any standard MCQ book. Discussions with fellow students are also a useful tool for revisions!

DAMS : How important you think was DAMS in your preparation ?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : DAMS has an excellent tutor base .the faculty is very approachable and the class notes are detailed and cover most topics. DAMS helped me tremendously to realise my weak spots and work on them. Each grand test was like a test run for the real exam!

DAMS: What do you think is the better way of preparation between selective, intensive study and wide, extensive study? What did you choose as your style of studying?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : What is obviously most helpful is wide yet intensive study, which is difficult and might seem impossible but with a good under graduate study base one can get a good amount of studies done with wide, extensive study. One need not know everything about every subject but should be well aware of all the relevant things to study.

DAMS: Indian PG entrances are highly competitive so to compete them students end up in appearing in multiple PG exams , kindly extend your views on this and also their pros and cons of appearing in multiple PG entrances .
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : Since PG entrances are highly competitive, appearing in multiple exams gives aspirants a chance to make up for mistakes they may make in one or two exams and perform better in the others, one never knows when one might have a bad day. It is always a safe bet to give multiple exams, though how many, is an important question. One cannot possibly attempt to give all PG entrances. That will not only be mentally and physically very taxing, but also lowers ones morale.

Pros are that basically you get more than one chance of proving yourself and even if you are confident of scoring well in any one exam, the rest can be kept as back up.

Cons are that it may be very taxing and one may end up wasting too much time travelling to exam centres outside your city.

DAMS: Which subjects did you focus on?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : Where competitive exams are concerned, one cannot really afford to ignore any subject. Of course there are some subjects like Medicine and surgery which need a lot of studying. They cover a huge chunk of almost every exam. Apart from those i focussed on the short subjects, as some of them really don’t get read that much in under-grad and need extra attention.

DAMS: What was your strategy for the exam day? How many questions did you attempt and why?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : An extremely important factor is being calm and patient and well rested. One may not remember some things at the centre, but getting excited and agitated about it is never going to help. One has to attempt questions with a calm mind and rationally, keeping in mind the marking scheme and negative marks etc. Since this was DNB, i attempted all 360 questions.

DAMS: What do you want to specialize in, why and where?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : My dream has always been of pursuing general surgery!

DAMS: Which teachers in DAMS influenced you most and what do you like about DAMS and would recommend to your juniors?
Dr.Ketaki V Gharpure : All of DAMS faculty is from an illustrious background and very well read with respect to their subjects. What I really like about DAMS is their exam based teaching and study structure.

Dr. Sumer’s lecture was an eye-opener. An inspiring day, that enabled me to outline my year of study. Dr. Siddharth, Dr Varun Gupta, Dr Bhardwaj, Dr Rajiv Tiwari, Dr Bhojani, Dr Chowdhry and Dr Rai in particular were very encouraging! J

The faculty is doing a wonderful job of giving the students a good running start to each subject! For which i m greatly thankful to them!