of Rs. 150 as monthly stipend to postgraduates, and more importantly, Rajam anticipated the reorganization of the states and told Gopinathan that he would get a rare opportunity to set up a new department in a new medical college in his home state of Kerala. The words turned out to be prophetic.

He was an excellent student, had the admiration of his teachers, and always completed the assigned projects on time.

After acquiring a Diploma in Venereology, Gopinathan joined the District Government Hospital, Ernakulam, in 1965 as a skin and venereal disease (VD) specialist. The regular night duty helped him to learn practical medicine, surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology from the leading specialists of Ernakulam.

A year later in 1958, he had an opportunity to join Trivandrum Medical College under Dr.Ambadi Bhaskara Menon (after whom the IADVL Ambadi oration is named), who was the Head of the Dermatology Department at the Trivandrum Medical College. He was in search of an energetic young man to follow his footsteps in the specialty. Dr. Gopinathan was thus given the post of clinical tutor in dermatology in Trivandrum Medical College, the first time in any medical college in Kerala.

Gopinathan was soon selected by the Indian Medical Association (IMA, New Delhi) for a 3-year residency training in dermatology in the USA. At the University of Pennsylvania, he was guided by renowned masters such as Dr. Hermann Beerman (co-author of Modern Clinical Syphilology), Dr. D. M. Pillsbury, Dr. A. M. Kligman, and Dr. W. B. Shelly. He was also guided by Drs. Eugene van