Madathil Govindan Sahadevan was a consultant physician and neurologist, and emeritus professor of medicine at Calicut Medical College, India. He was born in Tellicherry, Kerala, the son of Madathil Govindan Sahadevan, a doctor. He was educated at Basel Evangelical Mission Parsi (BEMP) High School, a long-established English medium school, and then studied medicine at Madras University, graduating in 1952. From 1953 to 1959, he was an assistant surgeon in Kerala.

In 1959, he went to the UK, for postgraduate studies. He was a senior house officer and a registrar, and, from 1961 to 1963, a registrar in neurology at Hammersmith Hospital, where he worked with Christopher Pallis [Munk’s Roll, Vol.XII, web]. He returned to India by driving his Hillman all the way from London to Calicut with some English and Australian friends.

Back in India, he was a teacher at Calicut Medical College, the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, and Alleppey and Trivandrum colleges. He retired as professor of medicine and superintendent of Calicut Medical College Hospital. He wrote papers on, among other subjects, motor neurone disease, ataxia and atrial flutter in Marfan’s syndrome.

Outside medicine, he was interested in sports, particularly cricket, tennis, soccer and billiards, music, English literature and long distance driving. He was a freemason.

In 1956 he married Suneethi Kaniyath Poothakandy, the daughter of a planter and timber merchant, who survived him. They had two sons.

RCP editor

[Brit.med.J.,2002 324 1160]