Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy: Veni Vidi Vici

Figure 1.

Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy (1918–2006)[3]

“Arise, transcend thyself, thou art man and the whole nature of man is to become more than himself.” Sri Aurobindo

There are billions of people inhabiting the planet Earth, a grain of sand in the vast desert, a drop of water in the infinite ocean, surviving and contributing in their own small way. From these, every once in a while, there turns out a rock chiseled to perfection, a diamond; or a mineral emerging stronger under pressure, a pearl. Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy was one of them, a precious gem in the treasure chest of Ophthalmology.

Dr. V, as he was popularly known, was born on October 1, 1918 in Vadamalapuram, a small village 80 km from Madurai in Southern India.[1] The eldest of five children, his education had humble beginnings, in a school without paper or pencils, where children learned by writing on sand from the riverbank.[2] He was also deeply influenced by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo. However, his favorite teacher was life itself. His village had no doctors, and he had seen several complications arising from pregnancy; this spurred his desire to become a doctor, an obstetrician to be precise. He studied Medicine at Stanley Medical College in Madras, receiving his MD in 1944.[3] Fresh out of medical school, he served in the Indian Army Medical Corps from 1945 to 1948.[1] Unfortunately, he was struck by a crippling form of psoriatic arthritis, leaving him bedridden for more than a year.[4] Although the disease twisted his fingers out of shape, it was no match for his spirit that rose like a phoenix. He returned to Medicine, choosing to pursue Ophthalmology when he realized he would no longer be able to train in Obstetrics. He completed his masters in Ophthalmology in 1951 from the Government Ophthalmic Hospital, Madras.[3]

Dr. V was a master surgeon, performing almost 100 cataract surgeries a day. He is also called a “lakh surgeon,” having performed more than 100,000 surgeries in his lifetime.[1,4] [Fig. 1] He was the Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at Government Madurai Medical College as well as surgeon in the Government Erskine Hospital, Madurai for almost 20 years.[3]

Figure 1.

Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy introduced eye camps to tackle the tremendous burden of needless blindness in India and later founded the Aravind Eye Hospital[1]

Dr. V met Sir John Wilson, the founder of the Royal Commonwealth Society of the Blind, (now called Sightsavers International) at a conference in 1965. Influenced by Dr. Wilson, Dr. V decided to take up the task of tackling and eliminating “needless blindness” in the country. They proposed their ideas to Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister then, and spearheaded the National Program for the Control of Blindness.[3] Dr. V was the first to introduce mobile eye camps in rural Tamil Nadu. He established a rehabilitation center for the blind in 1966, an Ophthalmic Assistants Training program in 1973, and India’s first residential nutrition rehabilitation center in Madurai for treatment of children with potentially blinding vitamin A deficiency and nutritional training of the mothers.[1,3]

Dr. V retired at the mandatory age of 58. But was this the end? Far from it, it was the beginning of a new journey. In 1976, along with his siblings, G. Nallakrishnan, R. Janaki, G. Srinivasan, and G. Natchiar, he established the GOVEL Trust under which Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, Tamil Nadu was founded. What started as an 11-bed facility, with the doctors mortgaging their homes and donating their own furniture, has grown today into a 4000-bed hospital, with seven tertiary centers, seven secondary hospitals, 95 primary eye examination facilities, an international eye research center, an eye bank, and a postgraduate training institute, performing more than 500,000 surgeries each year. But what is most remarkable is that it is a registered non-profit organization, treating more than half its patients for free or at highly subsidized rates and yet remaining financially self-reliant from patient revenues.[3] Dr. V’s idea was simple: if people were unable to come for treatment, bring eye care to the people, conquering barriers of cost, inaccessibility, and lack of skill or time.[5] He essentially introduced a tiered pricing system, letting the patients select their treatment services—free, subsidized, or paid—based on their ability to pay and their own preferences. The patients who are willing to pay actually subsidize and cover the cost of the patients who are unable to pay. In the Aravind system, nurses are known as mid-level ophthalmic personnel (MLOP) and are specifically trained in nursing, diagnostics, counseling, and administrative work.[3] Doctors are focused on clinical and surgical work in a tireless yet streamlined manner, ensuring efficiency and quality. It is estimated that each year, Aravind does 60% as many eye surgeries as National Health System, UK, at one-one hundredth the cost.[2]

In 1992, Dr. V and the Aravind team founded Aurolab, a facility that manufactures ophthalmic consumables, including intraocular lenses, bringing down the cost to one-tenth of the international prices, improving availability and accessibility to developing countries.[3]

Dr. V was also the founding member of the Seva Foundation, a US-based non-profit organization that partners with Aravind in facilitating improved eye care, education, and research.[3]

In an article on Dr. V’s vision, the author begins with the age-old question involving the mystery of leadership and goes on to explain it in the subsequent paragraphs: “There is a place you can go to find the answer: India. But don’t go to the megacities of Bombay and New Delhi or to the newly minted software center of Hyderabad. Go to the wild, wild south, mystic cowboy country, where gurus roam the plains, and where a John Wayne western turns into a Mahatma Gandhi eastern soon enough. Climb into a beat-up 1980 Chevy Impala. Ride for seven hours with an eye doctor who is 82. Ask him to tell you the secret, to answer the question, to solve the mystery. Listen carefully to what he says. Watch everything he does. And learn.”[6] The legend of a man, who continued to live a simple life and could be easily mistaken for a patient in the corridors of Aravind that he did not miss even a day to visit till his very last days, unassumingly inspired and touched several lives. The Aravind Model, centered on high-quality, high-volume, and low-cost service, was the Harvard Business Case Study in 1993.[3] Dr. Richard Litwin first visited Aravind in 1982 and was greatly motivated by Dr. V’s approach of providing eye care through outreach to the neediest. During the visit, Dr. Litwin met Dr. Sanduk Ruit from Nepal, then an Ophthalmology trainee at Aravind, and several years later, Dr. Litwin along with Dr. Ruit started eye camps in Nepal for patients blinded by cataracts, living in Nepal’s remotest areas. Later, Dr. Ruit, along with some young entrepreneurs in Nepal and the Fred Hollows Foundation, established the Tilganga Eye Centre in Kathmandu, providing quality eye care high up in the Himalayas. Dr. V is the only ophthalmologist, other than Ferdinand Monoyer, to be featured on Google Doodle, a tribute on his birth centenary [Fig. 2 ].[2] The most loving tribute was, however, by the staff and their children of Aravind group of hospitals, who performed a dance drama, “A Tribute to the Light,” commemorating his 100^th birth anniversary.

Figure 2.

Google Doodle commemorating the birth centenary of Dr. Venkataswamy on October 1, 2018[3]

Dr. V was the recipient of some of the highest awards: the Lifetime Service Award from the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (1982), the Helen Keller International Award (1987), the International Blindness Prevention Award, American Academy of Ophthalmology (1993), Susruta Award, Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology (1997), Dr. B.C. Roy Award, the highest honor for a doctor in India (2001), and ASCRS Ophthalmology Hall of Fame (2004). He was bestowed with the Padma Shri in 1973 by the Government of India for his indelible contributions to eliminating blindness in the country[1,3] [Fig. 3]. Dr. V passed away on July 7, 2006, leaving a gaping hole in the hearts of family, friends, and above all, his patients. The cornerstone of his own creation, his footsteps will continue to echo in the hallways, his spirit will continue to pulsate through the operating rooms, and his compassion will continue to thrive in every pillar of Aravind Eye Hospital.

Figure 3.

Dr. Venkataswamy being awarded the Padma Shri by the President of India, V.V. Giri[3]

“But few are those who tread the sunlit path; Only the pure in soul can walk in light.” Sri Aurobindo

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.