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Indian Journal of Surgery
Medknow Publications on behalf of Association of Surgeons of India
ISSN: 0972-2068
Vol. 64, Num. 6, 2002, pp. 491

Indian Journal of Surgery, Vol. 64, No. 6, Nov - Dec. 2002, pp. 491

Editorial

The Other Face of Surgery

The Late Prof. P. K. Sen

Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, K. E. M. Hospital, Parel, Mumbai 400012.

Code Number: is02001

Limitations of vision are apt to restrict one's sensibilities and one is often unable to see the other side of things. To many surgeons the practice of surgery consists of rather well defined pathways, shaped by tradition and dictated by practicalities. And for such as these, the other face of surgery is always turned away….. the face of science in the making, new ideas in the cauldron, the temper and tang of new pungencies…..

As an Association elder wryly observed recently at a meeting "In my time a young surgeon was known by the number of patients he saved, not by the number of dogs he could kill in the laboratory". To this gentleman the other face of surgery was turned away. Clouded over by years of static thinking and fear of new ideas, surgery to him, as to many others, had the appearance of a one sided medal to be worshipped in perpetuity. This reaction by itself, is not unusual. Many years ago Wilfred Trotter wrote: "A little self examination tells us easily how deeply rooted in the mind is the fear of the new, and how simple it is, when fear is afoot, to block the path of new ideas by unbelief, suspicion, misunderstanding and suspended judgment". Allen Cregg puts it more strongly: "Medical research has left the medical profession quite far behind, and at times, clumsily resentful".

It is strange that there is no reference to this other face in the Hippocratic Oath. That is a fact which is extraordinary in its implication for it meant for thousands of years physicians were not recommending that it was their duty to go beyond the prescribed course. To leave the world as one found it, unimproved, unchanged for the better is a very static creed, unworthy of the essentially mutational basis of life itself, let alone a progressive science such as surgery. The absence of a definite injunction in the Oath to strive for new thought underlines how even for the Great, immersed in the mundane issues of immediate professional pressures, this vital face came to be ignored in framing the Credo. Perhaps a new creed has now to be shaped to suit the new dimensions of our science but the other face of surgery has always been there and now only the bemused would miss looking for it. Many among us, however, are so enchanted by those comfortable aspects of routine, each in our own ambit, that we neglect the other face without which surgery itself would not be whole. Enveloped by the insulating surroundings of our own work, it is easy to lose sight of the protean nature of our profession and, perhaps, no matter in how many directions one may look and understand, and seek, the other face of surgery will elude us. But it is there, and this, is something we must never forget.

For twenty years of his tortured life, John Hunter dissected beehives-full five hundred of them- dissecting each individual bee. The role of the worker, the drone and the queen bee was for the first time made known to man by a surgeon turned naturalist…… an applied biologist, who was looking for the other face of his chosen calling; and we know, as the world knows, he found it.

Reproduced from Indian J Surg 1966; 28: 129-130.

(We thank Drs Kaushik Bhattacharya and Neela Catherine from Department of Surgery, Sri Ramchandra Medical College & Research Institute, Chennai 600016 for sending us this Editorial which nearly thirty-five years after its appearance in the IJS is still very pertinent and apt.)

Copyright 2002 - Indian Journal of Surgery. Also available online at http://www.indianjsurg.com

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