Renowned Mumbai-based physician RD Lele remembers Suresh H Advani being
denied a "house job" — the supervised clinical training session for
final year MBBS students — at Mumbai's Grant Hospital. "This was in the
late 60s. There were six sections [at the college] then. Five said no to
him because he was handicapped. I gave him a house job and he went on
to do his MD [doctor of medicine] in general medicine under my guidance."
Dr Suresh Advani has been wheelchair-bound ever since he suffered an
attack of polio aged 8. But nothing could stop him from being a healer.
********
Lele says people used the word crippled to deny him admission. Advani was struck by polio
when he was eight years old which led to a paralysis of his lower
limbs. Lele says he is proud of Advani. He created "special provisions"
to enrol Advani as a registrar [a medical student who receives advanced
training in a specialist field] because back then the guidelines didn't
allow the physically challenged to occupy the position. "See, he has
succeeded in life despite all the odds," Lele adds.
Breaking the Ceiling
For Advani, one of India's best oncologists who recently won the Padma Bhushan, the country's third-highest civilian award, battling odds wasn't anything new. Back in 1965, after finishing school — at that time it was the inter-college degree — he applied for admission to medicine at Grant Medical College, but was rejected. They didn't want a "crippled" person.
But he wasn't ready to give up: he wrote to the hospital authorities, ministers and others, requesting their intervention. Finally, Grant Medical College relented and he went on to pursue an MBBS as a day scholar. He had a person to help him get onto the wheelchair and he often took a cab to his parents' home in the Mumbai suburb of Ghatkopar, where he continues to live even now.
Mumbai-based veteran physician Dr Gurumukh Sainani, himself a Padma Shri awardee and who had taught Advani at Grant Medical College, recalls how the "young boy" used his powers of persuasion to convince the dean of the college to admit him to the MBBS course. "He may have had physical problems. But his mind is extremely fertile," he says, adding that he had lost count of the distinctions and awards Advvani won as a student. "My colleagues and teachers were all very helpful. I never had any difficulty in my student days," says Advani.
Great Aspirations
Advani didn't have any great ambition until he was hospitalised with polio. In the 1950s there were hardly any drugs to treat the disease. But the interactions he had with doctors at a Mumbai hospital where he spent "a few months" blew his mind. "I wanted to be a doctor like them," says Advani, who went on to train himself at Royal Marsden Hospital in London after his brief stint at Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital after completing his MD.
By then, he had chosen a branch of medicine that wasn't seen then as sexy: oncology. "After MD, I got a job at Tata Memorial in 1974. At that time there was a lacuna in this branch [oncology] — people thought it was not really worth pursuing it," recalls the 66-year-old. Later, he travelled to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle where he says he was lucky enough to work with the likes of Dr E Donnall Thomas — known as the father of bone-marrow transplantation — who won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1990. There, he specialised in bone-marrow transplants.
Back in India
Advani is known to be the first oncologist in India to have successfully done a bone-marrow transplant. He transplanted bone marrow into a nine-year-old girl down with myeloid leukaemia from her brother. He was also a part of clinical trials to help children with lymphoblastic leukemia. Conducted on 1,200 patients, the trials helped raise success rates in treatment from 20% to 70%.
"He is a healer. He is a role model for us," says Dr Mehboob Basade, a stem-cell specialist at Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital. Like Basade, Sainani is enamoured of Advani's capacity for hard work. He remembers this from the time Advani used to do the rounds with him as a house man, says Sainani. "He is a role model for aspiring medical students and also for those who are physically challenged. He not only sailed through all difficulties but also excelled in his field."
Advani and hard work are constant companions: he is at the Hinduja Hospital in the morning and at Jaslok Hospital in the evenings. He used to fly down to Delhi earlier to see patients at the Apollo Hospital . "I have worked with him at Tata Memorial as well as at Jaslok. Most of us [medical oncologists] here have a bent for working very hard. It is because of the training we received from Advani who makes hard work look easy," says Dr Boman Dhabhar, an oncologist who is now an independent consultant with several hospitals.
"When he [Advani] says he went from this city to another and from one hospital to another, he makes it sound as if he walked to that place. None of us seems to think he is physically challenged anymore because he has overcome all such hurdles," says Dhabhar.
On Cancer & Treatment
For Advani, one of India's best oncologists who recently won the Padma Bhushan, the country's third-highest civilian award, battling odds wasn't anything new. Back in 1965, after finishing school — at that time it was the inter-college degree — he applied for admission to medicine at Grant Medical College, but was rejected. They didn't want a "crippled" person.
But he wasn't ready to give up: he wrote to the hospital authorities, ministers and others, requesting their intervention. Finally, Grant Medical College relented and he went on to pursue an MBBS as a day scholar. He had a person to help him get onto the wheelchair and he often took a cab to his parents' home in the Mumbai suburb of Ghatkopar, where he continues to live even now.
Mumbai-based veteran physician Dr Gurumukh Sainani, himself a Padma Shri awardee and who had taught Advani at Grant Medical College, recalls how the "young boy" used his powers of persuasion to convince the dean of the college to admit him to the MBBS course. "He may have had physical problems. But his mind is extremely fertile," he says, adding that he had lost count of the distinctions and awards Advvani won as a student. "My colleagues and teachers were all very helpful. I never had any difficulty in my student days," says Advani.
Great Aspirations
Advani didn't have any great ambition until he was hospitalised with polio. In the 1950s there were hardly any drugs to treat the disease. But the interactions he had with doctors at a Mumbai hospital where he spent "a few months" blew his mind. "I wanted to be a doctor like them," says Advani, who went on to train himself at Royal Marsden Hospital in London after his brief stint at Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital after completing his MD.
By then, he had chosen a branch of medicine that wasn't seen then as sexy: oncology. "After MD, I got a job at Tata Memorial in 1974. At that time there was a lacuna in this branch [oncology] — people thought it was not really worth pursuing it," recalls the 66-year-old. Later, he travelled to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle where he says he was lucky enough to work with the likes of Dr E Donnall Thomas — known as the father of bone-marrow transplantation — who won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1990. There, he specialised in bone-marrow transplants.
Back in India
Advani is known to be the first oncologist in India to have successfully done a bone-marrow transplant. He transplanted bone marrow into a nine-year-old girl down with myeloid leukaemia from her brother. He was also a part of clinical trials to help children with lymphoblastic leukemia. Conducted on 1,200 patients, the trials helped raise success rates in treatment from 20% to 70%.
"He is a healer. He is a role model for us," says Dr Mehboob Basade, a stem-cell specialist at Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital. Like Basade, Sainani is enamoured of Advani's capacity for hard work. He remembers this from the time Advani used to do the rounds with him as a house man, says Sainani. "He is a role model for aspiring medical students and also for those who are physically challenged. He not only sailed through all difficulties but also excelled in his field."
Advani and hard work are constant companions: he is at the Hinduja Hospital in the morning and at Jaslok Hospital in the evenings. He used to fly down to Delhi earlier to see patients at the Apollo Hospital . "I have worked with him at Tata Memorial as well as at Jaslok. Most of us [medical oncologists] here have a bent for working very hard. It is because of the training we received from Advani who makes hard work look easy," says Dr Boman Dhabhar, an oncologist who is now an independent consultant with several hospitals.
"When he [Advani] says he went from this city to another and from one hospital to another, he makes it sound as if he walked to that place. None of us seems to think he is physically challenged anymore because he has overcome all such hurdles," says Dhabhar.
On Cancer & Treatment
Dhabhar adds that Advani never fails to inspire his patients too. "After all, keeping a person's hope alive is as important as treatment in the case of cancer. He understands it only too well," says this former colleague. Advani has seen the branch of medicine — oncology — grow in India right before his eyes. He started off at the time when oncology was looked down upon by most medical specialists as a "less lucrative area".
Not without reason, of course. Cancer patients back in the 70s went to hospitals to die. "Yes, the results were very poor back then," says Advani, adding: "I have seen in my lifetime a revolution in the treatment. Over three decades ago, there were less than a dozen drugs available to treat cancer. Now we have thousands. Drug discovery used to happen once in 10 years back then; now thousands of drugs and new types of treatments are available thanks to technology and research."
Many cancers are curable and people who suffer from several types of cancer can almost lead a normal life, he says. Stem-cell research has helped a lot in improving oncology, he argues. "Today we are talking about the levels where genetic-level diseases become difficult to treat. We have to just target the gene."
Trends, Worries
As regards expensive preventive surgeries that people opt for — like in the case of Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie who underwent double mastectomy (removal of breasts) because of cancer fears — Advani says: "Some people advocate an extreme step. These are, of course, people who had seen their family members go through a very tough time." He adds that such diseases are eminently curable once detected at an early stage.
Advani is anxious that, despite campaigns, tobacco products are freely available. "Data say 40% of cancers in India are related to tobacco. Tobacco should go out of business," he says. "The worst part is that even if you change the habits today, effects of smoking could show 20 years later."
He is equally worried about the rise in cancer caused by toxic lifestyles. "Eating habits play a vital role in preventing several forms of cancer. Eat more plants," suggests Advani. Good with lectures, he gives talks across the world on various forms of cancer, especially the India-specific ones such as cancer of the tongue, caused by chewing of tobacco.
Destiny's Child
Advani was born on August 1, 1947, in Karachi. His family — parents, three brothers and three sisters — had to flee to India on August 15 due to Partition. They came first to Deolali, Nashik, and then to Mumbai a few years later thanks to his father's electrical business. Advani, who used to walk until the mid-1950s, says he follows a strict diet and does breathing exercises to stay fit. "I have to be very careful about what I eat because of restriction in my movement."
Despite odds, he moved on in life pretty fast, says Sainani. For someone who had to flee his home when he was merely 15 days old, Advani rose to become the chief of medical oncology at the Tata Memorial Hospital and he also set up the oncology department at Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai — and he is currently the chief medical and paediatric oncologist and heamato-oncologist at Jaslok Hospital. This role model has wings on his feet.
Source : Economic Times , 21st July 2013
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