Chapter 4: A gifted Surgeon and a Teacher
I am not sure which part of his professional identity was more important to my father. Being a surgeon or a teacher. In the earlier years of his career, we used to live in government provided accommodations affiliated with the hospitals. Doctors were allowed to conduct some of their private outpatient clinics in the evening from an annex at the house.
I remember patients coming to the house after the clinic to share with my mother, their gratitude for the treatment they got from him. Entrenched in my memory is a woman named Usha. She was a factory worker and the thumb from her right-hand was crushed while operating heavy machinery. She had lost most of her right-hand functions. When she came to my father, he had performed an innovative procedure which transformed the index finger to carry out the functions of the thumb e.g., grip (pollicization). It was the first of its kind at that time in the state of Punjab and India and he was awarded a gold medal at the national Indian Orthopaedic Conference for it. Usha was just one of the several hundreds of stories we got to hear as a family.
In lay terms, there were patients crippled in accidents who started to walk after surgery, people with spinal injuries or disorders who got completely cured, limb injuries which got completely rectified. The list could go on. There was a god like reverence from many of his patients but to him his patients were sacred. He had a passion for honing procedures which would have the best outcomes with the least possible discomfort for his patient. He studied, researched his art at night and practiced it during the day. He wrote for medical journals, presented at international conferences and hospitals. He lived, breathed, and slept Orthopedics and was recognized as a stellar surgeon by peers. There are procedures in medical journals named after him. E.g., the Sandhu procedure and Hardas Singh Classification for neglected fracture neck femur.
He ruthlessly pursued excellence in his clinical practice, but I often wonder as to what got him more fulfillment; seeing patients or instructing students because he had an absolute passion for teaching as well. In his visits to Canada, I sometimes helped him draft his e-mails. He was not very tech savvy but needed to register online for conferences or communicate with colleagues. Whenever I finished his e-mail and went on to the signature line to sign him as Dr. Hardas Singh, he would ask me to correct it and put Professor Hardas Singh instead. He would explain to me how the title of professor was especially important. To him, it represented the responsibility and authority of inculcating knowledge to others. His innovation as a surgeon was significant to him but his ability and duty to share that knowledge was even more important.
Next chapter: What others say about him!!
