Dr. Anshula Awasthi

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
Let’s read some lesser-read books of Radiation Oncology.
Beyond the familiar names and the routinely quoted chapters, there is an entire world of literature waiting to be revisited—books that quietly hold decades of knowledge, perspective and the evolution of our specialty.
So, I’m starting a little reading journey from 1st October, 2026.
Not with the pressure of finishing a book in a certain number of days.
Not to make another checklist.
Just to read, rediscover and appreciate the enigma that each piece of literature unfolds, one page at a time.
First up — Walter & Miller’s Textbook of Radiotherapy. 📚
Let’s see where these pages take us.
#RadiationOncology #Radiotherapy #Oncology #MedicalReading #RadiationOncologyBooks #LetsRead #ReadingJourney #MedicalEducation #OncologyEducation

1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 0

Dr. Anshula Awasthi

There are a lot of things I have that I wanted to say for a very long time, and perhaps I never really got the opportunity—or maybe I was just too scared of the repercussions.

But now, as new JRs are all about to begin the next part of your journey, the next chapter of their medical life, I feel this is perhaps the right time to say it.

And I am saying all of this not to blame anyone, not to settle scores, and certainly not to preach from a pedestal.

I am saying it because I genuinely believe there is still room for all of us to do better.

There are certain things that have been normalised in medical colleges for generations that, when you actually stop and think about them, are simply—

NOT COOL.

Calling MBBS students at odd hours just for an “intro”.

Starting at 11 PM and making it go on for two hours.

Making adults dance or sing for you in the name of “getting to know them”.

“Come, dance for me.”

“Sing something.”

“This is how senior-junior interaction happens.”

Not cool.

Making a junior feel that accepting a senior boy’s friend request is somehow part of being a good junior.

Feeling that you need to spend time with a senior, stay around them, or tolerate things you are uncomfortable with just to “bond”.

Not cool.

Slut-shaming juniors because they wore shorts to the mess.

Commenting on what a girl wears, who she talks to, who she spends time with.

Not cool.

Telling freshers that until they become seniors they have to wear suits, that they cannot wear jeans on campus, or that they need to make two braids because “that’s how freshers are supposed to look.”

Not cool.

And maybe some of these things don’t even happen anymore.

I genuinely hope they don’t.

But that isn’t really the point.

The point is the mindset behind them.

Because somewhere along the way, we started confusing hierarchy with respect, obedience with bonding, humiliation with interaction, and discomfort with tradition.

And this is where I think toxicity actually begins.

We often talk today about women’s safety, equality, feminism, patriarchy, dignity and equal rights.

And rightly so.

But sometimes I wonder—

Where did all that equality go when we were in college?

For many of us, college was our first real interaction with society outside our homes. We stepped out of our families, entered a completely new environment, and were simply looking for friendship, belonging and togetherness.

And yet, sometimes, that was precisely where we were taught that hierarchy matters more than equality.

That a senior’s comfort matters more than a junior’s.

That saying “no” makes you difficult.

That questioning a tradition makes you disrespectful.

That you should tolerate something because “हमारे साथ भी हुआ था.”

But why?

Just because something was done to us doesn’t mean it has to be done to the next generation.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

And neither was trauma.

Neither was toxicity.

It starts with small things.

One uncomfortable call.

One forced introduction.

One comment about someone’s clothes.

One “task”.

One expectation to obey.

One situation where somebody learns that saying no has consequences.

One junior who tolerates something because they are afraid of losing the goodwill of a senior.

And these things mount.

Behaviour becomes habit.

Habit becomes culture.

Culture becomes the system.

And then, years later, we become JRs, SRs, consultants and seniors ourselves and wonder—

Why is the medical fraternity so toxic?

Why is there so much hierarchy?

Why is there so much lobbying?

Why is there so little togetherness?

Why do people behave like this?

Perhaps we also need to ask ourselves whether some of these behaviours were being ingrained in us much earlier.

Because toxicity doesn’t suddenly begin when you become an SR or a consultant.

It begins much earlier.

And that is why I think it is so important to raise our voices about the small things.

I have wanted to say this for years.

I actually wrote about some of these things in my journal back in 2014.

And I remember being so afraid that someone senior might read what I had written that I had to hide it from a social platform.

Think about that.

Being afraid of the repercussions of simply expressing what you thought was wrong.

And I think that fear of repercussions is itself something we need to question.

Because the seniors who genuinely matter to you will remain in your life.

The people who genuinely value you will value you even if you disagree with them.

And years later, when you meet someone from your medical college—whether a senior or a junior—there is still that strange, beautiful sense of belonging.

You shared the same place.

You shared the same journey.

You don’t need to have humiliated one another to create that bond.

You don’t need to have been afraid of one another to create that belonging.

Real relationships survive without hierarchy.

And I think that is something worth remembering.

I also recognise that many of us have been victims of this cycle.

And, perhaps unknowingly, some of us have also participated in it.

That doesn’t make us bad people.

It simply means that we have inherited something that deserves to be questioned.

And the good thing is—

we can stop inheriting it.

You don’t have to repeat something just because it happened to you.

You don’t have to make your junior go through what you went through.

You don’t have to be feared to be respected.

You don’t have to demand obedience to create friendship.

You don’t have to humiliate someone to create an interaction.

And you certainly don’t have to police someone’s clothes, friendships or choices to establish seniority.

So why am I saying all of this now?

Because you are about to enter the next part of your medical life.

You will become seniors in newer spaces.

You will meet interns, juniors, JRs, SRs and eventually people who look up to you.

And this is where you still have a choice.

If you haven’t thought about these things before, that’s okay.

There is still room for improvement.

There is still room to unlearn.

There is still room to choose differently.

So choose wisely.

Choose what you want to carry forward.

And choose what you want to leave behind.

Because the next generation doesn’t need to inherit our trauma as a rite of passage.

Maybe the greatest thing we can do for the people coming after us is to make sure that they don’t have to become victims of the same cycle just to become seniors themselves.

We can be the generation where it stops.

Not through a grand movement.

Not through a slogan.

But through hundreds of very small choices.

A choice not to call someone at midnight for an introduction.

A choice not to force someone to dance or sing.

A choice not to comment on someone’s clothes.

A choice to accept “no” without taking offence.

A choice to treat a junior like an adult.

A choice to build friendships without hierarchy.

A choice to speak up when something doesn’t feel right.

And perhaps most importantly—

a choice not to pass on what once hurt us.

I am saying all this because I genuinely hope that the next part of your journey is different.

Not because the past can be changed.

But because the future can be.

NOT COOL.

NOT NORMAL.

NOT NECESSARY.

And if there is one thing I hope you carry with you into the next chapter, it is this:

Respect is earned, not enforced.
Bonding is voluntary, not demanded.
Belonging should never come at the cost of dignity.

We have all been given a chance to do things a little differently.

Let’s choose to.

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

Dr. Anshula Awasthi

I have shared some thoughts (that nobody asked for, but being a senior, the “granny soul” in me made me post this, so go through it slowly at your best leisure because sometimes a careless doomscrolling can give life lessons to a pensive soul)

Firstly, to everyone who has got a rank and a branch that they have been fixated on for years — if you are getting the branch you always wanted, just go for the branch.

* Don’t boggle your mind over MD vs DNB.
* Don’t keep worrying about whether there will be “academics” or not. Practically speaking, even in many premier institutes, academics often boils down to PPTs and presentations, where the person presenting benefits the most.
* If you want a particular branch, you will study that branch whether you do MD or DNB. You will read from the same books, see patients, relate what you read to clinical practice and grow — ultimately, it is you who determines how much you learn.
* And honestly, in the current times, DNB is very, very doable. It is not what people sometimes make it out to be.
* By the time you pass out, I genuinely don’t think the old “MD vs DNB” bias should be something you are worrying about. Even in senior residency vacancies, eligibility commonly explicitly includes MD/DNB in the relevant broad specialty.

So please relax and wait for counselling and your college.

In the meantime, instead of asking every senior from every institute and every part of the country what you should do, think about what you want to do within your specialty — whether that is research, overseas opportunities, academics, or anything else that interests you.

And if the institute is decent, please let sanity be a preference too.

Second, for those who have got an unexpected rank and may not get the exact branch they initially wanted but still have some options:

Please genuinely look at all the options you have.

Don’t try to generalise your entire idea of medicine based only on what you saw during internship —JRs,SRs, consultants, etc. There are many specialties we barely know about because our internship postings may not even include those departments.

So don’t immediately rule out a branch just because you haven’t seen enough of it.

And please don’t get stuck thinking:
“What will I be doing in 5 years?”
“What is the scope?”
“Will it be rewarding?”
“What will happen after I pass out?”

From a very unbiased perspective, scope is in the person, not in the branch.

Every branch has a scope. Ultimately, what you make out of it depends on you.

Nobody can genuinely predict what medicine, healthcare, or even their own life will look like 5, 10 or 20 years from now. Life is unpredictable.

Earlier, people used to ask, “Where do you see yourself as a specialist 10 years from now?”

Honestly, I don’t even know if I will be going to a hospital 10 years from now. I don’t know whether I will still be practising medicine 20 years from now or doing something completely different.

So don’t put that pressure on yourself.

If you like a subject, you can learn it. And let’s face it — someone who has done MBBS has probably learnt to like almost every subject 😂. Some subjects are read more, some less; sometimes you get exposure, sometimes you don’t. Sabka ho hi jaata hai.

Third — please don’t choose a branch purely by asking how much it will pay you.

The scenario is very different in different places. Yes, there are certain specialties where corporates hire specialists and pay more, and that is one reason those branches become “hot-selling” branches.

But being a hot-selling specialty does not make someone a better doctor or a better specialist.

It is simply a reflection of the current market scenario. If one specialty is being paid substantially more than another, naturally more people will choose it — and that is how this whole cycle of rankings, “top branches” and “take this branch because it has scope/money” develops.

Just understand the game before you make your decision.

And finally, no matter how much I tell you, everyone will ultimately choose what they want. You may read all of this and completely disagree with me — and that’s absolutely fine. Everyone has their own opinions and priorities.

But if there is one thing I would genuinely ask you to prioritise, it is:

Prioritise your mental health.
Prioritise non-toxic places.

Nobody deserves toxicity.

I think our generation of residents — and especially the Gen Zs coming up now — understands this much better. Any form of unnecessary toxicity should not be normalised.

Even things that we were once told were “necessary” — “call dena hota tha” during MBBS, for example — can also be a form of toxicity. Not everything that was normalised in our time needs to be carried forward.

And remember: respect for seniors cannot be forced. It is earned.

You will make friends. You will find your people. You will eventually have people around you who genuinely support you. You just have to identify those people.

Prioritise your mental health, do your work sincerely, learn as much as you can — and remember that this is just a profession.

It does not define what you are or who you are. ❤️

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

Dr. Anshula Awasthi

People often say medicine is a noble profession. Some days, it truly feels like one. Most days, it feels like a battlefield.

The irony of being a doctor in India is that society rarely allows us to simply be human. We are either placed on a pedestal as gods or dragged through the mud as scammers. There is no middle ground.

Patients often walk into a consultation as customers rather than people seeking care. Paying a consultation fee somehow translates into feeling entitled to every second of a doctor’s time, unaware that the same doctor may have skipped breakfast, delayed lunch, ignored thirst, or postponed even a visit to the washroom because emergencies don’t wait. Behind every delayed consultation is often another patient fighting for life—not a doctor trying to inconvenience anyone.

Today, information is available at everyone’s fingertips, which is wonderful—until information becomes misinformation or half-knowledge becomes absolute conviction. Differential diagnoses are made through search engines. Every listed side effect becomes a reason to distrust treatment. Every prescription is questioned, even when it represents decades of rigorous research, multiple phases of clinical trials, quality control, and guideline-based recommendations built on Level 1 evidence. Ironically, many therapies with little or no comparable scientific validation are accepted without hesitation because they are “ancient,” “natural,” or government-promoted. Scientific scrutiny is demanded only from one system of medicine, while others are often exempt from the same standard of evidence.

And perhaps what hurts the most is how thankless the profession has become. Not because gratitude is owed—but because empathy seems to have disappeared.

The struggles don’t end outside the hospital.

Within medicine itself, we are not always kind to one another. Too often, seniors pull juniors down instead of lifting them up. Achievements become weapons rather than inspiration. Doctors are judged by ranks, medals, quiz victories, publications, fellowships, superspecialty choices, or the perceived earning potential of their branch—as though these numbers define the worth of a human being or the compassion of a physician.

Young doctors are criticised for wanting a life beyond hospital walls. Wanting to travel, laugh, fall in love, celebrate birthdays, spend time with family, or simply rest is somehow interpreted as a lack of dedication. As though becoming a doctor required surrendering the right to remain human.

Then there are the invisible prejudices—patriarchy, caste, religion, gender—still quietly influencing opportunities, mentorship, and acceptance in spaces that should have been governed only by merit and integrity.

The challenges extend beyond doctors too. Relationships with paramedical staff often become adversarial instead of collaborative. Nurses, technicians, ward staff, residents—we all work under immense pressure, yet somewhere along the way mutual respect gets replaced by blame. Doctors are ridiculed. Paramedical professionals feel unheard. Everyone is trying to prove they know more than everyone else, while forgetting that healthcare only works when every member of the team works together.

And then comes the system itself.

Successive governments have made many promises for healthcare, but doctors often feel invisible in the conversation. Violence against healthcare workers, burnout, unsafe working conditions, impossible hours, and even the deaths of doctors rarely sustain national attention. Our protests fade quickly. Our exhaustion is normalised. Somewhere along the journey, many of us quietly stopped expecting the system to stand up for us.

The hardest part of being a doctor isn’t just treating disease.

It’s fighting on multiple fronts at once.

You fight disease.
You fight misinformation.
You fight unrealistic expectations.
You fight bureaucracy.
You fight hierarchy.
You fight prejudice.
You fight burnout.
And sometimes, you fight your own profession.

Often, you fight alone.

Despite everything, I still love medicine.

Not because of the prestige.
Not because of the degree.
Not because of the title before my name.

I love medicine for its science. For the beautiful amalgamation of anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, psychology, ethics, and humanity that together attempt to understand one of the most complex creations—the human being. I love learning. I love solving clinical puzzles. I love the privilege of being trusted at someone’s most vulnerable moment.

That love is probably the only reason I am still here.

Because the version of medicine I dreamt of was about healing, curiosity, compassion, and lifelong learning.

The version I met came with politics, prejudice, hierarchy, violence, judgment, loneliness, and relentless emotional exhaustion.

Somewhere between those two worlds, the doctor in me survived.

The human in me is still trying to.

Happy Doctor’s Day to every healthcare worker who continues to show up despite everything the profession demands of them—and despite everything the world often forgets they sacrifice.

May we someday be allowed to be neither gods nor villains.

Just human beings trying to heal other human beings.

3 months ago | [YT] | 0