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Sambhu Nath De. Hold that name for a moment.

He was born in 1915 in a small village in Bengal. He grew up in a world where cholera was the ultimate terror. It was a disease that could sweep through a village and drain the life out of a healthy adult in a matter of hours.

The global medical establishment knew about the cholera bacteria, but they were fundamentally blind to how it actually killed. They believed the bacteria invaded the bloodstream and caused systemic failure. Because they did not understand the mechanism, they could not build a simple cure.

In the 1950s, Dr. De was working as a researcher and pathologist at the Medical College in Calcutta. He did not have a multi-million-dollar Western laboratory. He did not have air conditioning. He was working in a suffocatingly hot, severely underfunded room, surrounded by one of the deadliest pathogens on earth. He decided to look where no one else was looking.

Through meticulous, grueling experiments using a rabbit model, he discovered something that shattered the established medical consensus. He proved that the cholera bacteria did not need to invade the bloodstream at all. Instead, it sat in the gut and secreted a deadly poison.

He discovered the cholera enterotoxin. He proved that it was this specific toxin that forced the human bowel to violently secrete massive amounts of fluid, leading to catastrophic dehydration and death.

He realized that if the disease was just a massive fluid drain caused by a local toxin, the treatment didn't require complex systemic drugs. It required fundamentally understanding fluid replacement.

His exact discovery provided the scientific bedrock for Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT)—the simple mixture of water, salt, and sugar that forces the intestines to absorb fluid faster than the toxin can drain it.

He gave the world the cheapest, most effective medical intervention in the history of public health.

He did not receive the Nobel Prize. He was nominated multiple times, championed by Nobel laureates who recognized his genius, but the committee passed over him. The global spotlight shifted to Western institutions.

Dr. De did not fight for the fame. He retired quietly, living a modest life, and died in 1985 in absolute obscurity. Even within India, his name was largely forgotten by the institutions he served.

Today, every time a devastating flood or earthquake hits and cholera breaks out in the camps. Every time an ASHA worker in a remote village hands a simple ORS packet to a terrified mother. Every single one of the estimated 50 million children who have survived severe diarrheal diseases since the 1970s. They are all alive because of the quiet, relentless work he did in that hot room in Calcutta.

He was the man who disarmed cholera. Sambhu Nath De.

This is the kind of story PROFESSION exists to tell. Every healing profession has its forgotten giants. If you know one — share their story here.

PROFESSION — For every soul who chose to heal.

Medicine is the most noble profession, dedicated to healing. However, the systemic culture in many of our institutions has become a silent crisis. Between 2010 and 2022, nearly 500 members of our medical community lost their lives to suicide. This is not just a mental health problem; it is a system problem.

To protect our juniors and help aspirants make informed choices, we are refining and updating the "Toxic Colleges List." We are covering all Central, Government, and Private institutions.

We need your input to classify departments into these three threat levels:

Tier 1 (Critical): History of suicides, physical assault, or sexual harassment.

Tier 2 (Severe): Academic blackmail, malicious career sabotage, or massive stipend fraud.

Tier 3 (High): Extreme mental harassment or systemic discrimination (beyond standard grueling duty hours).

How to contribute (Strictly Anonymous): Please DM me or join our dedicated discussion group. To ensure the list remains accurate and fair, please provide:

College & Specific Department.

Nature of Toxicity (e.g., Physical abuse, stipend fraud, career threats).

Your Source Level: Are you a direct victim/student, a co-resident, or an alumnus? (Direct sources carry the highest weight; hearsay will be discarded).

Privacy & Security: We understand the risks involved. Your anonymity is our absolute priority. No personal details, names of whistleblowers, or sensitive identity markers will ever be published. We are only collecting data on the departments to create a transparent safety map for the fraternity.

Let’s refine our profession and hold toxic environments accountable. If you know a department that belongs on this list—or one that has been wrongly accused and needs to be cleared—reach out.

For the fraternity, by the fraternity.

PROFESSION - For every soul who chooses to heal.

The numbers first.

2010 to 2019 — 358 suicides in the Indian medical community. 125 students. 105 residents. 128 doctors. 2020 to 2022 alone — 118 more.

Over 50 percent were under 30 years old. The risk of suicide among doctors is 2.5 to 7 times higher than the general population. This is not individual weakness. This is a system producing a predictable outcome.

What RTI data is revealing

From 2020 to 2024 — 276 PG students quit JIPMER. At AIIMS Delhi — 225 superspeciality students quit in 3 years. 112 PG students at

AIIMS Delhi sought psychiatric counselling in that same period. At JIPMER — 12 were admitted to a psychiatric ward for depression and stress.

These are premier institutions. If this is happening there — what is happening everywhere else.

What came to media attention These are not allegations. These are documented and reported cases.

RG Kar Medical College Kolkata — the 2024 case did not emerge from nowhere. Media has documented a history of unnatural deaths and institutional failures across years at this institution.

BJMC Ahmedabad — five resident doctors ended their lives in a single year. Reported in Times of India. The institution continued functioning normally.

Gandhi Medical College Bhopal — five PG residents collectively threatened mass suicide due to toxicity. Reported in Medical Dialogues 2024.

KEM Hospital Mumbai — multiple suicides across years. Documented in Indian Express and Hindustan Times.

Rajindra Hospital Patiala — a third year MD student died by suicide in 2024. Reported by Times of India.

VMMC Safdarjung Delhi — RTI data showed the highest number of PG course dropouts of any institution in India over five years.

These cases have published sources. They are not rumours.

What research confirms about the daily reality 64 percent of interns report personal burnout. 80.4 percent of resident doctors experienced verbal abuse at work. 21.7 percent experienced physical violence. 73.3 percent said it negatively impacted their mental health.

Most did not report it — because they knew nothing would happen. That certainty — that the institution will not protect you — is itself a form of harm.

The factors the data confirms Duty hours beyond any human or clinical standard — continuous shifts documented through RTI applications across multiple institutions.

Harassment running vertically through the hierarchy — protected by the same people who control your examination results and completion certificate. Stipend withheld, delayed, or in some cases demanded back before the final PG examination.

Career sabotage as punishment for those who speak up. Anti-harassment committees reporting to the same faculty the complaints concern.

A culture where abuse is rebranded as training and survival is mistaken for resilience. There is already a list

A document has circulated anonymously within the medical community for years. It names institutions and specific departments with patterns of toxicity — physical abuse, sexual harassment, stipend fraud, suicides. It is incomplete. Many institutions that should be on it are not — because the students inside are too afraid or too exhausted to add anything even anonymously.

The list exists because the community already knows what the institutions deny. What this post is asking

The research is published. The RTI data is public. The media coverage exists. What is missing is what it actually looks like from the inside on a normal working day.

If you are a current PG student or recent graduate — What does the toxic culture look like daily — not the extreme cases, the accepted baseline.

What type of abuse is most present — physical, sexual, financial, career-related, psychological. What stopped you from reporting it. What would actually help the students who come after you.

Drop it in the comments. Or DM if you need anonymity — nothing shared privately will be posted without your explicit consent. If you know more institutions or departments not getting enough attention — say so. The list that exists is not enough. It needs to be more complete, more verified, and more useful.

All institutional references in this post are drawn from published media coverage — Times of India, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Medical Dialogues, The Hindu. RTI data cited from Medical Dialogues April 2025. No unverified allegation is stated as fact.