About 11 to 12 surgeries a day can leave any surgeon weary
Dr V.P. Shanmugasundaram and chairman of KG Hospital Dr G. Baktavatsalam. (Photo: DC)
Coimbatore: About 11 to 12 surgeries a day, 4,321 surgeries a year on an average and over 1.5 lakh surgeries over the last 30 years can leave any surgeon weary. But not Coimbatore’s senior surgeon, 60-year-old Dr V.P.Shanmugasundaram, who has performed an astounding 1,51,267 surgeries and counting.
A general surgeon, he performs operations for gall bladder stone, piles and tumour removal. The surgeon started operating on patients when he was as young as 25 years, when the present KG Hospital was just an areca nut farm, when people used to dread walking along the Government Arts College road after dusk for the fear of thugs and when the old hospital was a dilapidated structure described as “Booth Bungalow” (ghost house) and had just about six beds to accommodate inpatients.
“Then, the doctors were considered to be God in the literal sense of the word and they accepted what the doctors said wholly. But now most of the patients who come, seem to come knowing it all. Some get information out of surfing the net, others come armed with information from a doctor in the neighbourhood or with information from someone in their locality who has had the same problem. So when the doctor has an observation, then he is bombarded with hundreds of questions. And now healthcare has become a commodity. Which doctor, which hospital offers the treatment at a competitive price is what they look for,” he says.
He has done one surgery free for one paid surgery too, he explains, “A husband comes with a problem with symptoms and is advised to undergo surgery. The wife has an obviously visible tumour but is not ready to undergo the surgery due to want of money, then I have offered one surgery free for one offer,” he quipped.
Management of patients is the toughest job today. Living up to the expectation of the patient is difficult. They want a hundred per cent complication-free surgery and are not at all concerned that everything is not in the hands of the doctor. Now they ask about the medical equipment used, success rate of the procedure, success rate of the surgeon and so on. The most important job of the surgeon today is to prepare the patient for the surgery and if he accomplishes that he has crossed 50 per cent of the bridge, he said.
Doctors of today fail to talk to the patients and provide information. When the patient comes with half-baked information then it becomes difficult. After the advent of laproscopic surgeries, they want a ‘lap’ surgery done, irrespective of the body part. ‘Lapra’ is abdomen and laproscopic surgeries can be done only in the abdomen. Dr G. Baktavatsalam, chairman of KG Hosptial who was the “doctor teacher” for Dr VPS said that he joined as a house surgeon and has now become a master surgeon.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
Next Story
