Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Relax! You are in safe hands...
|
He has saved many a life in the nick of time. Known for his neuro-surgery skills, Apollo Indraprastha Hospital's Dr S.K. Sogani believes that time has come for non-invasive surgeries. RANA A. SIDDIQUI meets the medical professional who believes one must dare... .
|
HE WAS a five-day old infant, weighing 600 grams only, premature and bleeding profusely. This small being had haematoma, a thick blood clot in his brain. Even if injected one small needle, blood would ooze out and continue to flow for an hour at a stretch. No one was ready to touch him as even shifting him from one place to another would lead to profuse bleeding. He was dying.
To operate upon him or not was to be decided within a minute. To muster up courage to touch the child was a challenge taken up by Dr. S.K. Sogani.
He rushed the child to the intensive care unit. Within an hour, the child stopped bleeding and his heartbeat was normal. This 51-year-old neuro-surgeon at Apollo Indraprastha Hospital, Delhi, took out his haematoma.
For him the challenge was not new, but the case was. For the experience of doing more than 5000 brain and spinal operations gave him enough confidence. "He was too delicate to hold," Dr Sogani recalls.
One Amar Singh weighing 140 kg was almost paralysed because of severe back pain. He was unable to get up or sit down on his own. He had also developed brain stem tumour. All doctors had refused to attend to him thinkingthe inevitable was round the corner. But soon after for more than 10 hours, Singh was in operation theatre under Dr Sogani's charge.
A few days later, Singh was on the road to recovery. If one goes to Apollo's neuro-surgery unit, there is no dearth of such stories. Dr Sogani, Managing Director, Apollo Millennium Hospital has also won several national, international and social awards including Pride of India Award in Thailand, the Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award and the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshni award for his contribution to medical profession. He owes much of his success to the modern gadgets and equipment.
"The hi-tech Frameless Stereo Taxi Machine that costs around Rs 3.2 crore is one such gadget that has made neuro-surgery easy. Its success rate is also 99 per cent. The machine is like a robot that pin points the very area and disorders into the brain where it should be operated," he informs. But the cost of the machine makes it difficult for most hospitals to buy it.
In Delhi only the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Apollo have it.
Neuro-surgery, is one such domain which the students of medical sciences should opt for, he suggests.
A few years later, the manual cardiac surgeon will sit idle due to the invasion of high-tech machines. So students should opt for non-operative but invasive area in neuro-surgery as also minimally invasive spine surgery. Both have a wide scope in the future, he foresees.
Sogani has regrets about medical institutes and colleges that do not provide students proper learning environment and are woefully short of modern equipments. That is why many talented doctors rush abroad where they have sophisticated technology to help them grow.
Moreover, medical colleges allow private practices that further bars young doctors from behaving like a doctor. They transform themselves to money-making machines.
"Only 10 per cent people of the country can afford to come to hospitals like Apollo, the rest go to Government hospitals. So the Government must take care that a doctor in its medical college should refrain himself from private practice and think of serving humanity for which he takes it an oath on entering this profession," he philosophies.
"Each month I do three to four operations free of cost. My consultation fee is Rs. 300. But if a financially weak patient gives me only Rs 50, I don't mind. I have enough to eat. I crave for blessings now.
The day I don't treat a patient, I feel I have lost something in life."
What is best suggestion for a young doctor? "Just dare" pat flashes the reply from the veteran doctor who has saved many a life in his illustrious career.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
