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Subspecialty pioneer implemented new knowledge in India
When Kantilal V. Mody, MBBS, DOMS, DO, FRCS, FRCOphth, left India to study ophthalmology in England, he knew he would reciprocate the knowledge he had already gained in Mumbai.
 Kantilal V. Mody |
What he did not realize is just how much knowledge he would gain in the multi-faceted nature of ophthalmology and that it would be the implementation of subspecialties that he would bring back to his own country.
“It was easy for me to be a consultant in London, but I opted to return because I realized that all of my secondary and higher school education, science college education and undergraduate as well as post-graduate medical education were all in Mumbai, so I should reciprocate what I received,” Dr. Mody told Ocular Surgery News in a telephone interview.
“My mission was successful. My mission was to come back and reciprocate and give back all we have received from the citizens of Mumbai,” he said.
Training abroad
Four years after receiving his Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery and post-graduate education from the University of Bombay K.E.M. Hospital and Seth G.S. Medical College in Mumbai, Dr. Mody received permission to work in the National Health Service of England.
Dr. Mody, working in London, said he was placed in a variety of jobs in an array of subspecialties that did not exist in India at the time.
“Doing these jobs, I got my qualifications,” he said. “Initially, we were getting the jobs in general ophthalmology, but after I got through my first years, I started getting the jobs as a senior registrar in the subspecialty.”
Dr. Mody said internationally reputed eye surgeons in the U.K. and consultants instructed, trained and gave practical experience in various teaching hospitals in London and elsewhere in general ophthalmology as well as in its subspecialties.
They taught him phacoemulsification with lens implant, vitreoretinal surgery, fundus fluorescein angiography, ophthalmic ultrasound, and he learned about macular disease, medical retina, medical ophthalmology, squint, thyroid eye disease, diabetic and other vascular retinopathy and external eye disease. He received practical experience in these subspecialties while he was senior registrar at Charing Cross Hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital, Kings College Hospital and other hospitals in London.
With this exposure, Dr. Mody had the opportunity to present and instruct during international courses at these hospitals. He said he met American surgeons who suggested he practice in the United States.
He interacted with American eye surgeons at Charing Cross Hospital during regular international courses and workshops in phacoemulsification, and they suggested, ‘You come to the U.S.A., and you’ll do very well,’” Dr. Mody said. “But somehow, I was to return to Mumbai, and hence I did not show any response.”
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Images: Mody K |
Returning to India
Dr. Mody said he felt an obligation to return to Mumbai and share the education he received, which allowed for his success abroad. He said the specific techniques he had learned in England were not yet in use in India.
“In those years, whatever I had learned did not exist in Mumbai, so I thought that I must return … and do all these things and start changing the way people are thinking in ophthalmology,” Dr. Mody said.
When he returned to Mumbai in 1979, he received an appointment at Jaslok Hospital, where he has worked and devoted himself for 29 years and was recently appointed director of the ophthalmology department.
At Jaslok, Dr. Mody was given the assignment to develop and establish a new department that would include the various subspecialties, he said.
“Ours was the first subspecialty department which I could establish well in Western India,” Dr. Mody said. “I am full of satisfaction that my mission of returning to India was successful.”
He also credited his wife, Prabha Mody, FRCS, FRCOphth, MS, DOMS, with helping him achieve that success.
“To my good luck, my wife is also an eye surgeon, and she’s equally qualified. She is actually more intelligent than me,” he said, laughing. “She’s a skillful surgeon.”
Implementing subspecialty
Despite Dr. Mody’s implementation of a subspecialty department within the ophthalmology department of Jaslok, he and other Indian doctors did not, and still do not, have the luxury of devoting themselves to one subspecialty, he said.
“When I returned, there was no concept of subspecialty. I had to do everything,” Dr. Mody said.
“I’m not focusing on one area because that is not feasible here. We have to go with the stream and whatever comes, we decide to make our research out of that. So my research is mainly clinical observations. I don’t do any lab work or experimental work because such facilities do not exist here,” Dr. Mody said. “It’s mainly clinical experience and our observations and whatever is recorded.”
He expanded many of the procedures he had learned abroad into the structure of Jaslok Hospital.
“People were not doing microsurgery, so I started microsurgery – phaco with lens implant, fundus fluorescein angiography, laser, ultrasound, glaucoma, vitreoretinal surgery – whatever was new that I knew, I put it into practice,” he said. “Now there’s so many centers doing these procedures, and that gives me more pleasure because what I started has become common now.”
At 73, Dr. Mody said he is still busy and active with clinical work as well as clinical research.
“I was thinking after I completed secondary school education, I spent a quarter of a century in my studies and gaining experience in my sub- specialties,” he said. “From ’52 to ’78 — 26 years — we were studying all the time. And we were learning the various subspecialties by actually holding the responsibilities, not like an observer.”
The patient as a deity
Dr. Mody said he has his own philosophy in looking after his patients.
“I believe in God, but my patient is my God. My patient is my God, and the place where I work is my temple or church or mosque,” he said. “Whatever I do for the patient, I am doing it for God, so it creates a divine atmosphere.”
This philosophy, he said, helps both him and the patient.
“It means I don’t treat the patient in a commercial way to make money, but just see how much I can be useful to them,” Dr. Mody said. “This is a very personal view.”
He said he has maintained patient relationships for 25 years, with good rapport and high patient satisfaction.
“I have to put myself in the patient’s shoes and then think about it, if I were the patient, what I would expect. The same thing I should deliver,” Dr. Mody said.
For more information:
- Kantilal V. Mody, MBBS, DOMS, DO, FRCS, FRCOphth, can be reached at Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, 15, Dr. G Deshmuki Marg, Mumbai, India 400 026; 6657-3291; fax: +22-2352-0508; e-mail: ophthalmic@jaslokhospital.net.