News

Volume 2 Issue 14 - July 15, 2004

Disabled doctors make a difference

Dr Suresh Advani, Dr Eric Borges and Dr Behram Pardiwalla are few of the most reputed doctors in Mumbai. Ask the patients who queue up every day for appointments. These patients don’t seem affected by the fact that their doctors are ‘disabled’.

Oncologist Dr Suresh Advani had been struck by polio in both limbs at the age of eight. This was the reason he was refused admission to Grant Medical College despite being a topper at university. Currently the director of medical oncology at Jaslok hospital, Dr Advani says, “my disability has never been a handicap for me.” The 2002 Padmashri and the 2003 Dhanvantri award recipient is best known for pioneering bone marrow transplant in India in 1982.

Dr Eric Borges is consultant cardiologist at Bombay Hospital. Though afflicted with polio at the age of one, he says, “I believe there is always room at the top and my disability never came in the way of my reaching there.” After topping his MBBS batch in 1974, he went on to help the government of Mauritius set up its first cardiac centre.
Though his right leg and left arm were afflicted by polio when he was two, Dr Behram Pardiwalla is a consultant physician at Breach Candy Hospital. His most noteworthy achievement is the setting up of the Indian Society of Critical Care.