Dr. Vikhe Patil Memorial Hospital & Medical College

Being out here at Vilad Ghat on the Nagar-Shirdi Road, things feel a bit different than being in the middle of a crowded city. Dr. Vikhe Patil Memorial Hospital & Medical College is a big place, and there’s always something going on. You have the students running around between classes and the hospital side where people are coming in for help. It’s a lot of ground to cover. The post-MIDC area is pretty spread out, so you see a lot of open space around the buildings. I spend a lot of my time walking from one wing to another. The medical college part is full of books and young people trying to learn the ropes. Then you have the hospital where it’s more about the actual patients. It’s not the quietest place because of all the activity, but it’s got a rhythm to it. The road outside, the one heading toward Shirdi, is usually packed with buses and trucks. We get people coming in from all the nearby villages. It’s a long day for most of us who work here. We have to keep track of a lot of paperwork and making sure the equipment is where it belongs. It’s not a shiny new private hospital style. It’s a solid, busy institution that’s been part of this landscape for quite a while. The wind blows pretty hard across the ghats sometimes, but the work never really stops.