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Mentoring Makes a Difference

Date : May 11th, 2017

We like receiving good news at the Vattikuti Foundation. This week, we had a nice chain of emails about how one of our partner surgeons- Prof. Dr. S. P. Somashekhar helped a new robotic surgeon and robotic program last Sunday. Dr. Donald John Babu is a Surgical Oncologist at the Mahatma Gandhi Mission (MGM) New Bombay Hospital Vashi. Dr. Babu told one of our colleagues about his experience with Dr. Somashekhar: "I invited Dr. Somashekar as my Proctor for my case of Cancer Rectum, surgery being 'posterior exenterations'. It was a pleasure to have him as a guide and teacher. Sir had the patience to teach me every step and explain the importance of each."

Dr. Somashekhar certainly seems to live by the quote featured on the MGM Hospital website from Mahatma Gandhi: "Compassion is a muscle that gets strong with use." He is very active as a member of the Robotic Surgeons Council of India. He serves on the Board of his home hospital Manipal Health Enterprises, in addition to his patient duties. He also teaches Surgical Oncology at Manipal University, servs as Editor-in-Chief of a medical journal and has additional editorial and other medical society board positions. The Vattikuti Foundation greatly appreciates his role as a Mentor Surgeon for our Vattikuti Fellow at Manipal, Dr. Sushil Jain Kumar.

Dr Babu had more to say: "I am really grateful to him since I re learnt steps of Robotic surgery. Patient had a smooth course in the ward as well. I will be calling him in the future for other surgeries as well."

Prof. Somashekhar, in his typical modest fashion, told our colleagues: "It's a pleasure to always mentor and help start successful robotic programs across India. I am very happy it helped."

Rohit Gupta, Sr. CSE for Vattikuti Technologies responded, "Dr. Donald (Babu) has given his feedback and I too think it’s really worth it to have a Proctor like him, as he helped a Surgeon from scratch and taught him step wise, by which Surgeon become confident to take robotic indication ahead. It's great to have him as a Proctor!"

We could not agree more. Thanks, Prof. Dr. S. P. Somashekhar, for all you are doing to help the Vattikuti Foundation to reach the goal of having 500 Indian Robotic Surgeons by 2020!