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A TRIBUTE TO DEBENDRA NATH GUHA MAZUMDER
The Architect of the Gastroenterology Department at IPGMER, Kolkata and the West Bengal Chapter of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology.
DEBENDRA NATH GUHA MAZUMDER, M.D., FNAMS, Professor of Gastroenterology at the Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research / SSKM Hospital, Kolkata passed away on the 15th March, 2025 at the age of 93 years. The Gastroenterology community of clinicians and researchers mourns this tremendous loss.
Dr. D. N. Guha Mazumder, son of late Surendra Kumar, and late Subhadra Guha Mazumder, was born on 5th April, 1933 at Bishnupur village, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal. He graduated from R.G. Kar Medical College, Kolkata in 1956 and obtained his post graduate degree in Medicine from Calcutta University in 1961. Prof Guha Mazumder joined the West Bengal Health Services, Govt. of West Bengal as Medical Officer in 1959.
In 1975, Dr Guha Mazumder moved to the Gastroenterology Unit of the Department of Medicine, IPGME&R, Kolkata, and started hemodynamic studies of the liver in the liver laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University at the Department of CTVS at IPGMER, Kolkata. Dr. Guha Mazumder developed a Gastroenterology lab in the department of Medicine and continued his research programs on Ascariasis, Giardiasis, Non cirrhotic portal fibrosis with financial supports from ICMR, CSIR, etc (1979 – 1996). In 1983, the great calamity of Arsenic toxicity was detected in some districts in West Bengal due to drinking Arsenic contaminated sub soil water, and he started epidemiological studies in the affected districts to detect cases of Arsenicosis.
In 1986, he became Professor of Medicine and started planning for creation of the Department of Gastroenterology at this institute. With the financial support from Govt. of West Bengal, he established an advanced gastroenterology experimental research lab for the study of collagenoses in liver, and a motility lab for the study of esophageal and anorectal motility disorders. The Department of Gastroenterology at IPGMER was established in 1989. Prof Guha Mazumder was Professor of Gastroenterology and Head of the Department (1989 – 1996). Under his guidance in 1994, the teaching program in DM Gastroenterology was started.
In 1988, Dr. Guha Mazumder established the West Bengal Chapter of Indian Society of Gastroenterology with a few members mostly from the departments of Medicine and Surgery of IPGME&R, Kolkata. He was the founder secretary of the state Chapter of ISG. In 1994, Prof. Guha Mazumder was the President of Indian Society of Gastroenterology.
Dr. Guha Mazumder’s efforts resulted many seminal studies on chronic Arsenic toxicity. In 1998, he established the Trace Element laboratory in the Department of Gastroenterology, IPGMER. Prof Guha Mazumder was an inborn researcher and also a wonderful mentor and published many seminal research papers (more than 200) in high index national and international journals.
Dr Guha Mazumder was a true people’s physician-scientist and beloved person. He dedicated his life for the wellbeing of the poor rural people. We, his students and fellows and staff members of the Department of Gastroenterology, miss him and will remember him forever.
