Rising up in Yelburga taluk of Karnataka’s Koppal district within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, Dr Rajesh Kishan Rao, now 51, skilled first-hand the ‘backwardness’ of the district, particularly within the healthcare sector. This consciousness regularly transitioned into a private mission, a set off level to pursue drugs and serve the agricultural households within the state.
Dr Rao is a professor and unit head of cardiothoracic surgical procedure at Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Analysis (SJICS&R) in Bengaluru. Until now, he has over 600 minimally invasive cardiac surgical procedures (MICS) and over 3,000 cardiac surgical procedures to his identify.
“Working on increasingly more sufferers isn’t one thing that makes me blissful. My aim is to make sure that the variety of sufferers reduces over time. I at all times want for a wholesome life for every person,” says Dr Rao.
Recalling an incident from his younger days, Dr Rao says, “Someday, one of many villagers fractured his arm, and we needed to anticipate 12 hours to get him correct therapy. He was later shifted to a hospital in Gangavati city. This pained me and made me marvel concerning the attain of healthcare in villages. That’s after I determined to take up drugs critically and guarantee no affected person, particularly these from a decrease socioeconomic background, is left unattended.”
Dr Rao studied in a authorities faculty and later pursued MBBS from the Authorities Medical Faculty, Bellary. Nonetheless, he didn’t crack the seat within the first try. “I narrowly missed the MBBS seat, and I didn’t have a strong monetary backing to afford administration quota seats. Therefore, I dropped a yr, ready more durable, and took one other shot at it within the following yr, after which secured a seat,” he says.
Later, Dr Rao labored briefly at a authorities hospital in Delhi as a junior registrar in 2001 earlier than pursuing his MS (Normal Surgical procedure) in KMC, Mangalore in 2004. Drawing inspiration from his cardiology professor, Dr Suresh Pai, he took up cardiology. He additionally labored as a cardiothoracic surgeon at NIMS, Hyderabad, earlier than becoming a member of SJICS&R as an assistant professor in 2008.
Dr Rao specialises in advanced cardiac and thoracic surgical procedures, together with coronary artery bypass grafting, valve repairs/replacements, minimally invasive strategies together with Proper Anterior Thoracotomy (RAT), and Proper Ventricle Infra-Axillary Thoracotomy (RVIAT).
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Not like conventional open-heart surgical procedure, which requires slicing by the breastbone and leaves an extended, seen scar down the chest, the RVIAT strategy makes use of a 3-5 cm incision hidden beneath the appropriate arm. For the affected person, this implies much less ache, much less blood loss, and a far faster return to regular life.
For younger women and girls, it means one thing much more valuable: the scar is hidden away from the “milk line”, making certain that future breast growth isn’t affected.
Dr Rao has carried out greater than 95 per cent of those surgical procedures freed from value for sufferers beneath the poverty line – when superior cardiac care prices a number of lakhs in non-public hospitals. “In truth, Jayadeva Hospital in Bengaluru is the one authorities hospital in India the place greater than 600 MICS have been carried out,” claims Dr Rao.
The physician says that probably the most difficult a part of his job is when he performs surgical procedures on younger youngsters who develop a gap between the higher chambers of the guts. “This provides a really traumatic expertise. It solely makes me ponder as to why God is unkind to such younger youngsters,” he provides.
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Dr Rao additionally conducts free medical camps at Gangavati and affords diagnostic checks to villagers. “Since there isn’t a essential infrastructure and sources to carry out surgical procedures in villages, I ask them to go to Jayadeva Hospital in case they’re identified with severe cardiac issues,” he says.
Dr Rao can also be somebody who isn’t enticed by affords from non-public hospitals. “I don’t align with the imaginative and prescient of personal hospitals. I’m not a medical skilled who can work on ‘targets’ as some name them. Loads of Jayadeva’s sufferers journey for a whole bunch of kilometres in a number of modes of transport to achieve the hospital. Nothing else pleases me than seeing these folks recuperate,” concludes Dr Rao.