It is my pleasure to write about Prof. Uday C Ghoshal, the President of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology (ISG). I met him first when I joined DM (Gastroenterology) at the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow, where he was working as Assistant Professor in 2001. My interaction with him within the initial few days led me to understand that Dr Ghoshal is a teacher, researcher and clinician par excellence. I was allotted a project on antro-duodenal manometry under his supervision as he was faculty in-charge gastrointestinal (GI) Pathophysiology and Motility Laboratory. My close association with him as my mentor started since then and this bond of respect for him became eternal because of his innumerable qualities as a great human being, the best of which is his simplicity and humbleness. He was always very approachable for students and as a clinician for his patients. His prescriptions were a treat to watch for not only the thorough assessment and plan of management, but also extremely beautiful hand-writing, which was better than even the best type-writer. We enjoyed his bedside classes and more so his beautiful PowerPoint presentations with simple yet very informative animations that ensured long-lasting understanding of the subject. Apart from thorough knowledge in gastroenterology, he taught us basics of biostatistics as well as basic sciences applicable to our subject. Luminal gastroenterology was his intense passion as he had futuristic vision to groom this sub-speciality as part of his commitment to his teacher and then the head of the department, Prof S R Naik, whom he respects a lot.

Prof Ghoshal was subsequently got promoted to the post of Professor and Head of the department of gastroenterology, SGPGIMS, Lucknow. He served there till September 2023 before he took voluntary retirement from this service and jointed the Institute of Gastrosciences and Liver Transplantation at Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals, Kolkata, as a Senior Consultant and Chief of Luminal Gastroenterology and GI Motility for his love for Bengal and to re-unite with the family, as his wife joined All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Kalyani, West Bengal and his younger son was in medical school at Kolkata. During his tenure at SGPGIMS, he took the department to greater heights, both nationally and internationally. He established the best GI Pathophysiology and Motility Laboratory in the department, which not only served several complex patients with these disorders, but even imparted training to several doctors within the department and also the country and abroad. Towards the later part of his tenure, he became the Faculty In-Charge, Research, at SGPGIMS and started several initiatives to promote research in SGPGIMS, including starting of Research Day, to promote institutional research.

Born in a small village named Oltora, near Beliatore in Bankura district of West Bengal in a humble family fulfilling their daily needs from the small farming land, Prof Ghoshal had his initial medical education in Burdwan Medical College, Burdwan, West Bengal, in spite of a much higher rank in entrance examination adequate for getting a college with higher ranking, he chose to study as a day-scholar while residing in his maternal uncle’s house at Burdwan. Prof Ghoshal fulfilled his parents' (Late Shri Nalini Rajan Ghoshal and Late Smt Shanti Sudha Ghoshal) dream of becoming the first doctor from their village. He received his postgraduate degree in internal medicine from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, followed by DM in Gastroenterology from SGPGIMS, Lucknow. He was awarded eight gold medals during his medical school and university first position in all three professional examinations.

Prof Ghoshal contributed immensely to the field of gastroenterology at national and international levels. He took a balanced approach to patient care, research and teaching throughout his career. His efforts to complete the activities of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology (ISG) Task Force on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) brought out two very important studies on IBS in India showing several new observations on this condition in the country. His continuing works on functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID), currently called disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBI), led him to be the first Indian to be included in the Rome IV Committee for DGBI and the Rome V Committee as well. He served as the Director of the household survey of Rome Foundation Global Epidemiology Study on DGBI, including more than 73,000 subjects in 33 countries in six continents in the world, the first paper of which was published in Gastroenterology and bagged the Ken Heaton prize in 2021 for the highest-cited paper. He was also the co-chair of Rome Foundation Research Committee. He is the second Indian to be included in the Chicago IV classification for esophageal motility disorders. Prof Ghoshal is an avid researcher as evident by his publications (402 till date) and their citations (19170, h-index 70, i-10 index 271). He led several Indian and international consensus documents. He is also included in world’s 2% top scientists for more than six consecutive years in the Stanford University, USA survey.

I have closely watched Prof Ghoshal’s leadership capabilities. He was the founding member of the Asian Neurogastroenterology Motility Association and contributed to the development and growth of its journal, the Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility. He also founded the Indian Motility and Functional Diseases Association (IMFDA), which is now renamed as Indian Neurogastroenterology and Motility Association (INMA). He has served in the Governing Council of Indian Society of Gastroenterology, Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy of India, Indian National Association for Study of the Liver. He was also the Chair of International Liaison Committee of the Rome Foundation, Secretary General of Asian Neurogastroenterology Association. He is the current President of Indian Neurogastroenterology and Motility Association.

Prof Ghoshal has excellent organizing skills. In his initial years at SGPGIMS, he played a key role in the organization of ISGCON 2001 at SGPGIMS. He also organized several clinics in gastroenterology in memory of Prof S R Naik, a great teacher. He successfully hosted UP-ISG Chapter meetings, multiple IMFDA (INMA) congresses. He very successfully organized two international congresses at two distant cities in the same year (the 4th Biennial Congress of ANMA February 6 to 8, 2015, at Gurgaon [Delhi] and the 11th International Congress of Telemedicine Society of India during 27-29th November 2015 at Kolkata) while working at SGPGIMS, Lucknow.

Prof Ghoshal's editorial capabilities are worth mentioning. During his tenure (January 2018 to December 2022) as the Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Journal of Gastroenterology (IJG), the journal grew phenomenally and IJG got its first Impact Factor of 2 in the beginning of 2023. He was the first Indian to be in the Advisory Board of the Nature Review Gastroenterology and Hepatology and currently the first Indian to be included in the International Advisory Board of the Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He also serves as an Associate Editor of Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility, Digestive Diseases and Journal of Digestive Endoscopy. He has edited two books on GI Motility, one of which is a best seller textbook of GI Motility globally. He is on the Editorial Board of several national and international journals.

Prof. Ghoshal is a dedicated teacher and trained several DM, DNB and PhD students. He has been a teacher for the last 30 years, initially at the Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (IPGMER), Kolkata, then SGPGIMS, Lucknow, and then in his current work place at Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals, Kolkata, where he is also an Adjunct Professor of Apollo Hospitals Educational and Research Foundation (AHERF), Kolkata. He has guided many of his students in their research career during their training period. Prof Ghoshal is invited to deliver lectures not only in the country, but also around the world, including the US, European nations, Saudi Arabian nations, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Mayanmar, Sri Lanka, etc. He is a regular invited speaker in Asian Pacific Digestive Disease Week. He has collaborated with multiple institutions all over the world as reflected by several multi-centric research papers.

Prof Ghoshal is a Fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology and Rome Foundation. He has also been awarded Fellowship of Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh. He has also been awarded Fellowship to the National Academy of Medical Sciences, India. He is also a Fellow of Biostatistics and Epidemiology from World Health Organization (WHO) at Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Thailand. He has also served as a visiting consultant to Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, USA, and Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar.

He has received several awards, a few most important ones include Shakuntala Amir Chand Prize from Indian Council of Medical Research, Warren Marshall Award (2019) from the Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology, Hoechst Om Prakash Memorial Award (2002) and multiple other awards from ISG and journals (top-cited paper awards from several journals, including the IJG).

Prof Ghoshal is a thoughtful clinician and endoscopist. He is a very popular gastroenterologist among patients all over the country and adjoining countries. Prof Ghoshal innovated several novel devices for cost-effective care of patients in resource-limited setting. He has received two patents for these while four more are in the pipeline. He has received several extramural research grants from the Indian Council of Medical Research, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, Rome Foundation, Asian Neurogastroenterology and Motility Association and intra-mural projects from SGPGIMS, Lucknow. He initiated and registered a non-government organization in his mother’s name (Shanti Public Education and Development Society; www.spreadhealth.in) for education, research and innovation.

Prof Ghoshal loves Bengali literature and painting. He is an avid reader since childhood. He has written more than 200 Bengali poems of which some have been published in a book entitled “Pratham Prakash”. There is a saying that behind every successful man, there is a woman. His wife Prof Ujjala Ghoshal, currently Prof and Head, Department of Microbiology, AIIMS, Kalyani, West Bengal, is a great pillar of support in all his endeavors. They have two children — Dr. Udit Ghoshal, currently pursuing MD in Psychiatry at the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India and Dr. Utsav Ghoshal, currently an intern after completing MBBS from R G Kar Medical College, Kolkata. Prof Ghoshal is very sincere and dedicated to his duties towards all his family members in spite of his hectic clinical and academic schedule. He is also extremely disciplined in terms of his diet and exercise to ensure maintaining good health and this is evident by the fact that he still looks much younger and active than many of us who are actually junior to him.

Even after I completed my DM at SGPGIMS and left Lucknow more than a decade ago, I closely interacted with Prof Ghoshal, a great human being, an astute clinician-scientist, an enthusiastic yet empathetic teacher and a fine endoscopist, in the capacity of a collaborator and vice-president of the INMA, of which, he is currently the President. Under his able leadership, INMA has grown enormously in all aspects, including scientific activities such as multicenter original research projects as well as formulating national and Asian-Pacific consensus guidelines for major DGBIs. It is because of his futuristic vision and persistent efforts, GI Motility is now attracting a lot of attention of young as well as not-so young gastroenterologists and physicians all across India. For me, he is easily the Greatest of all time (G.O.A.T) luminal gastroenterologist of our nation and I am sure that his able leadership and dynamism shall take ISG to newer heights. His work truely reminds me of a quote by Ernest Rutherford, a nuclear physicist, “If you don’t do the best with what you have, you could never have done better with what you could have had.”