ISHQ Pramchand, 23, is a top medical student, plays the piano, studies kung fu and tai chi, is involved with clinical work at grass-roots level, created a small tech company with his twin brother Ashiq, is a keen sportsman, loves learning languages (speaks Japanese), reading JRR Tolkien, art museums and green tea.
Just reading this list would overwhelm most people, but Pramchand says he has learnt how to balance all the things he sets out to achieve.
“I think it’s about finding a balance, I take bite-size chunks,” he says, adding that when considering a career, it was difficult to choose between his two passions ‒ music and medicine.
“I thought if I become a pianist, I can’t become a doctor, but I can become a doctor and still be a pianist,” he says.
After he finishes studying for the day, he goes to the piano “where I practise for about an hour a day; it is a proverbial nightcap”.
He and his brother go to kung fu a couple of times a week, play tennis once a week, while Ishq also does a tai chi class and some gym on the weekend.
With a virtual graduation ceremony at the University of KwaZulu-Natal scheduled to take place next week, Pramchand has received the Top Achiever of the Year Award for a Final Year Student (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery 2021).
He says that during the holidays, he will consider what speciality he would like to pursue as he takes up his internship at King Edward Hospital in January.
He and his twin schooled at Crawford College and started playing the piano at the age of five, with the help of their mother, advocate Nalini Govender.
“I have always loved music and drama and our mom started teaching us both on piano when we were small. I watch piano concertos every week and when we go overseas, I go to concertos whenever I can,” he says.
While in Grade 11 he was asked to be the lead pianist in the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra which he described as “one of the greatest moments of my life”.
But it was his father, medical doctor Mahendra Pramchand who inspired his boys to become doctors, with Pramchand adding that his father also graduated at UKZN and even had some of the same examiners.
“My dad is an inspiration, he set a good standard and has advised us from first year. Even if some things have changed in medicine, the foundation is the same.”
Pramchand is quick to admit that he and twin, Ashiq “are always late, even if it’s two minutes and I think it must be my New Year resolution to stop being late”, adding that his twin would have to do the same because the pair were “inseparable, the umbilical cord is still there”.
With his studying over for the year, Pramchand says he plans to catch up on something else he loves: to read fiction, philosophy and business.
The well-known book Art of War lies on the table, which has both business and philosophical appeal and he says: “I enjoy eastern philosophy; it helps me to try to understand what I’m doing and how I can help humanity in the future.
“South Africa has a low resource setting and sometimes you can feel helpless with your patients, so finding meaning such as chatting with a patient and in those small bits of life, in the greater quest of the meaning of life.”
Pramchand has travelled to more than 60 countries with his parents and has a special love for Japan and Japanese culture ‒ where he also learnt to love green tea.
“While we were in Japan, Ashiq and I talked about starting a society to share information with our peers because doctors always have so much information, but do not always know how to share it,” he says. On their return, they started a student organisation to improve the speaking and writing skills of healthcare professionals.
The pair were also active in UKZN SA Medical Students Association and formed a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, an NGO that builds homes in disadvantaged communities.
Having also worked on TB education and awareness, Pramchand says honing diagnostic skills and being able to communicate with a patient were crucial to becoming a good doctor.
And, of course, he is also a “Covid graduate”, saying “the virus is unpredictable and is always mutating. The limitations of the pandemic were the human-to-human interview which I much prefer to online communication with a patient”.
“But there have also been benefits to the pandemic, especially the sharing of knowledge and the accessibility to information from scientists around the world.
Doctor’s orders? “The vaccine is very important, get your vaccination, wear your mask and keep your hands sanitised.”
The Independent on Saturday