BENGALURU: After a challenging year marked by Covid-19, 120 allied health sciences (AHS) professionals of the Institute of Allied Health Sciences, St. John’s Medical College, were awarded their degrees on Tuesday. This year, the graduation ceremony was a low-key affair.
Fifty eight graduates in Medical Technology, 18 in Bachelor of Physiotheraphy, 20 in Master’s in Medical Technology, and 24 students with Master’s degree in Hospital Administration, were awarded the degree certificates. Dr V Ravi, Nodal Officer for Genomic Confirmation of SARS-CoV-2-Karnataka and former Dean, Basic Sciences and Professor of Virology, NIMHANS, presented the certificates to graduate and postgraduate students.
Lalikutty T with a degree in BSc MLT and a batch of 2016, was awarded the second rank while, Deepika R was awarded the fourth rank; Priya Seagal, a graduate in BSc MIT, was awarded the sixth rank. Over 50% of graduate and post graduate students scored first classes. Recalling their final year as a “long one”, thanks to Covid-19, these students stated that they are out of the domain and will join the fight against the pandemic. Reeya Thampi from the 2016 batch recalled how students donned PPE and joined the fight against the virus.
Kasturi N with MSc in Hospital Adminstration, said that the six month internship “balanced the online classes”. Stating that the online classes in the final year though were challenging, she said that the 1.5 years of offline classes helped them to cope with the situation.Saujanya, a post graduate student in MLT, said that the pandemic kept them on their toes and they managed to balance between Covid duty and online classes.. Anuj, a BSc MLT student said that rural students found it more challenging with limited internet access.