Prof. Sood [Fig. 1] was a soft-spoken, gentle, devout person who has left his indelible footprints in Indian Ophthalmology. His hallmarks were empathy and patient-centric care.
Figure 1.
Prof. Narender Nath Sood, DO (London), FRSC (Edin), FRCOphth (1937-2022)
It is difficult to do justice describing his multi-faceted personality-the man, the guru, the Glaucoma pioneer, and the wise counselor for all who met him. Prof. Sood was always the last to speak at any discussion or debate, and his words were eagerly awaited, as they always were a concise and considered opinion. He radiated positivity and was full of appreciation for the residents and colleagues and was never heard to scold even the tardy resident.
Prof. Sood had his basic medical education from Amritsar Medical College, Punjab, India, and postgraduation in ophthalmology from Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, UK. He won the Moorfields Medal for being the best postgraduate student at the University of London. He later worked as a consultant at Surrey, UK, and then Reader and Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at JIPMER Pondicherry, India.
Prof. Sood was a member of the faculty at the Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences (RPC), All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India from 1968 to 1993, and built the Glaucoma Service from scratch, to become one of the best. He was passionate about teaching, training, and mentoring, not only in Ophthalmology but life from a broader perspective. To a generation of Indian Ophthalmologists brought up on Western textbooks, he insisted on a comprehensive examination to record and collect our own data of diseases. He personally did every patient’s gonioscopy at the Glaucoma Clinic in RPC and noted a relatively high prevalence of angle-closure glaucoma, at variance with Caucasians.
His publications were several and usually pathbreaking. Seeing children with congenital glaucoma with corneal edema and buphthalmos going blind with the available surgical procedures, Prof. Sood initiated the use of trabeculectomy at first, and then a combination of trabeculectomy with trabeculotomy in such cases with much success, which is successfully practiced by generations of his trainees. His work on primary angle-closure glaucoma, especially on biometric predisposition was pioneering. He was the first to describe pseudoexfoliation in India and epidemic dropsy glaucoma and had many such other iconic publications.
Prof. Sood realized that glaucoma was not getting the attention it needed even though it was blinding, so he decided to start the Glaucoma Society to bring the learning and the practice of the disease to the academic forefront. It was an uphill task in the age of snail mail and required collecting signatures from around India so that it could be called the Glaucoma Society of India (GSI). Prof. Sood just had to call people up and they at once responded enthusiastically. He was the Founder President of the society, laying down its simple commitment to improving the teaching and practice of glaucoma around the country. GSI currently is a very active and thriving society with year-long intensive academic programs and public education initiatives.
Prof. Sood’s awards and achievements are too numerous to count, but the legacy he would be most proud of would be the paradigm change in glaucoma management at all levels of care in India, and the many world leaders in the field of glaucoma today, whom he has produced and nurtured.
We, along with all his students, fellow ophthalmologists, and his patients and their families, together mourn the passing of Prof. Sood.