EHM People

Harbouring Ambitious Plans

Dr Subhash Chandra, 52, who founded the Manipal Heart Foundation at Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, has recently joined Wockhardt Hospital, Bannerghata, as the Head of Interventional Cardiology. "After working for 15 years at Manipal, I thought the time has come to move on," avers Dr Chandra. And why Wockhardt? He informs, "There are 11 cardiologists in Wockhardt, and they are all my friends. We want to form the largest cardiology group in India covering all aspects of cardiology and want to make all the facilities related to cardiology available to our patients under one roof. Also, Wockhardt is a new set-up and is well-equipped with the latest facilities." He will concentrate on both the branches of Wockhardt i.e. at Bannerghata and Cunningham.

Dr Chandra has 18 years of experience in healthcare and his special interests are non-coronary interventional procedures, device closures and endovascular repairs. He has so far performed more than 16,000 coronary and non-coronary interventions.

Behind A Miracle Surgery

Dr Anand Muller, 44, Consultant Urologist at Manipal North Side Hospital, Malleshwaram, who started his career as a senior registrar at Manipal in 1992 recently came in the limelight for saving the life of a two-month-old baby suffering from multiple birth defects. The baby was born with only one kidney, which was further complicated by a birth defect called Pelvi-Ureteric Junction Obstruction (PUJ Obstruction) causing kidney failure.

"Though pyeloplasty is a routine procedure, the presence of only one kidney and the co-existing airway problems in a very sick child needs utmost care and precision and demands that the procedure be done quickly once under anesthesia," he adds.

The Innovator Surgeon

Dr Patrick Kluger, Former Chief Surgeon, Mandeville Hospital, UK had come down to Delhi as the guest faculty for The Spinal Cord Society and Indian Spinal Injuries Centre. The centres had organised a pedicle screw fixation at Spine Masters Course. For the first time, the hands-on workshop used a goat spine for the placement of pedicle screws based on CT Scan and animated landmarks as opposed to putting screws in bone models.

"External fixators, which are used in limb surgery are not practical in spine, hence internal fixation is done in case of spine," he said. Besides being an eminent spine surgeon, Dr Kluger has to his credit the maximum number of neurosurgical instrument inventions and patents in his name, which include: Kluger target device 1982, Kluger Fixateur Interne 1982, Kluger Reductioning Instrument 1984, Kluger Multisegmentally useable internal Fixator 1993, Kluger Reductioning Instrument, and many more. Some of his commercialised technical innovations are target device for X-ray-guided surgery, locking nails and percutaneous placement of pedicle screws or biopsies, internal fixator for the spine 'Wirbelsäulenfixateur' for instrumental reduction and transfixation of the trunk-spine with bisegmental transpedicular fixation, translucent frame for perioperative positioning etc.

Dr Kluger feels that Indian spine surgery is on par with the best in the West, but what is lacking is wide spread training and good equipment like X-ray amplifiers, which are not available in all places. "What is important is to introduce new methods in education and training like what we did in ISIC using spine of a goat."

Dr Kluger now aims to further support a consistent service in spine surgery under the roof of the National Spinal Injuries Centre, Stokemandeville Hospital. "I also want to assist and promote the development and spread of comprehensive care for patients with spinal cord injuries in India and development of an internal fixator in minimised size for paediatric use, especially infantile scoliosis," he says.