Sorry state of affairs

Knowledge has this immense power to transform lives. I have come across so many incidents in my line of work that have reinforced my belief in this fact. Here’s an example.
My colleague VM recently travelled to his native village, near Varanasi. There he discovered that all was not well in his sister-in-law’s marital life. After a little probing, he found out the root cause – she wasn’t able to get pregnant. He got to know that she had had fibroids in her uterus. Apparently, she had travelled to Varanasi and had already undergone surgery once to remove the fibroids. This surgery had been performed abdominally, through a 6cm long incision. This had resulted in a long and painful recovery period. But after sometime, the problem of fibroids had resurfaced and the original problem of inability to conceive, remained unaddressed. So the couple had approached the same gynecologist again. This time around, the gynecologist had suggested a “brilliant” solution - total removal of the uterus – abdominal hysterectomy. Worse, he had also told the couple that this was the only solution, which was far from the truth. Needless to say, this worsened the situation in an already troubled marriage. Fortunately fate intervened in the form of VM who, due to his regular interactions with GYN surgeons in his line of work, was aware that the removal of the uterus was totally unnecessary. He confronted this gynecologist, who promptly retracted his statement. VM then brought his sister-in-law to Mumbai and got her surgery done laparoscopically. Also, the surgeon has assured the woman that she will be able to conceive through the process of in-vitro fertilization.




The alternative to abdominal/open surgery is to perform the surgery in a laparoscopic manner. This is referred to as keyhole surgery in layman language.
It is unfortunate, that a large segment of our country’s population is unaware about such options.
It is unfortunate for VM’s sister-in-law, that neither her gynecologist nor any other surgeon in Varanasi, was trained to perform laparoscopic surgery. Medical colleges don’t teach students how to perform laparoscopic surgery.
It is unfortunate that many doctors mislead their patients, to mask their inabilities and to make a quick buck.
It is fortunate that there are quite a few good doctors, who at least encourage their patients to try other options and guide them properly, before giving up.
It is unfortunate that unethical and unscrupulous doctors and surgeons outnumber the good ones by a large, significant margin.