Dr Tapan Kumar Banerjee was born as Chandrashekhar Kumar Banerjee. He resolved, at quite a young age, to jettison his formal birth name and be known by his simpler nickname, on the grounds that it sounded less ornate. This, in many ways, would foreshadow his personal and professional world view. As an obituary in India’s Statesman newspaper observed, Dr Banerjee was ‘among the last of a dying breed in this world of super-specialisations, an old-school physician who trusted his vast experience of medicine and his immense diagnostic skills to offer sound and sensible advice to his patients.’
Dr Banerjee obtained his MB BS degree from Sir Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College in Calcutta. He subsequently passed his MRCP examination and became a fellow of the RCP in London and Edinburgh. Prior to working in India, Dr Banerjee worked as a house officer at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham, registrar at Bedford Hospital, senior registrar at Ipswich Hospital, and consultant physician at Sunderland Royal Hospital. During this period, Dr Angus Buchanan, consultant physician at Bedford Hospital, ranked as one of Dr Banerjee’s most important mentors.
On returning to India, Dr Banerjee worked in Calcutta as a senior consultant physician at the Calcutta Medical Research Institute, the Sri Aurobindo Seva Kendra (a not-for-profit hospital), and the Apollo Gleneagles Medical Centre. He was also associated with the US Consulate in Calcutta as its chief medical adviser. Dr Banerjee kept alive his association with the RCP in London by serving as an international adviser for several years. He was also appointed as one of the first Indian examiners for the MRCP PACES examination, examining in Calcutta and Chennai. He played a pivotal role in bringing and conducting the PACES examination in Calcutta, which has since hosted examinees from eastern India, Bangladesh and South-East Asia.
Dr Banerjee’s patients included prominent personalities in India, such as film stars, international cricketers, artists, politicians, civil servants and diplomats. He also tended to hundreds of patients from modest backgrounds for little or no fee. A popular raconteur, he was a member of various prestigious social clubs, such as the Bengal Club (where he became its 107th president in 2000), the Tollygunge Club and the Calcutta Club. At the Bengal Club, he advocated for a relaxation in the membership criteria for doctors (who he felt were subject to unfairly high scrutiny) and succeeded in admitting many colleagues.
Dr Banerjee passed away while still in active practice. Professor Andrew Goddard, president of the RCP, wrote in a letter: ‘He exemplified all the best attributes of a physician, putting the care of his patients and the support of his trainees and colleagues at the heart of his work.’
Professor Andrew Elder, former president of the RCP in Edinburgh and former medical director of PACES, issued a statement describing Dr Banerjee as ‘a tremendous ambassador for medicine, for his city and for his country.’ Among colleagues in Calcutta he had mentored, noted surgeon Dr Sanjay De Bakshi stated: ‘I first met Dr Banerjee as a young resident surgeon at Sri Aurobindo Seva Kendra, and was immediately taken under his very comforting and protective wing. This caring mentorship was unstintingly extended to me when I returned from my 4-year stint in the UK with an FRCS. Dr Banerjee went that extra mile to teach a young surgeon how to set up surgical practice in Calcutta and never lose the spirit of honesty, integrity and empathy, something he himself never ever compromised on.’
Dr Banerjee was survived by his wife Binita, sons Arnab and Arpan, and older brother Dr Dilip Banerjee, a senior consultant in England, who was fortunate to have made a quick recovery after contracting COVID-19.
Arpan Banerjee
[This obituary originally appeared in the Royal College of Physicians’ In tribute: Remembering RCP members and fellows who died from COVID-19 in 2020]