gms | German Medical Science

We are fortunate to be surgeons and that too a Plastic Surgeon .It is one of the unique branch which can easily reach out to people having Social and functional problems like Cleft, Burn and other congenital deformities. The task is immense and we are only a handful people in the speciality.

The idea of Interplast and its implementation to reach out to the needy has helped a very large volume but the more we do the more we realise that this is just the beginning. There is the backlog and there are fresh cases every year.

As surgeons we look for problems and sort them surgically with immediate relief to a large number of sufferers. But the problem of Burn deformities is very diverse and needs to be tackled at multiple levels like Socio-economic, Specialists’ availability, Training of General Surgeons at multiple centers, Awareness, Splints, skin cover, long term follow-up.

All these requirements are needed to provide best care to the burn patient. Since the problems lies at multiple levels we can only do the end care part by providing surgical relief for the contractures. While doing the camps it should be possible to visit the Surgery department in the Medical colleges or Hospitals in the vicinity and give talks on primary burn care and early skin cover. Our target should be The General Surgeons.

We also have to see the possibility of working on a model like the Operation Smile or Smile train by empowering a few private setups. The existing setups could be given a minimum of money after they have done the procedure. This may be an incentive for the hospital owners to provide care and the patients could receive free services.

We have to aim at a long term goal of prevention of burn contractures to reduce the new load while we take care of the backlog.