Lucknow: Dr. Pratipal Singh, Consultant, Urologist and Andrologist at Nova Hospital, has had a long and fruitful run as an urologist. In his career, which has run for nearly 2 decades and still on, Dr Singh has served top-notch institutions and proven his mettle as a trained medical mind. He did his MBBS from KGMU in 1997. He did his MS from KGMU in 2002. He did his M. Ch. from SGPGI in 2007.
A throughout first class, he has the reputation of doing honours with flying colours. A gold medal recipient, he has all along bagged the best resident title through stints at KGMU and SGPGI. He is a widely published medical mind. Dr. Singh has to his credit – over 40 national and international articles that have been published in reputed journals.
Speaking to The Lucknow Tribune, Dr. Singh said that in his time, academics was a tough grill where an aspiring doctor was marked on publications, representation on podium, and the best would be picked by the Head of the Institution for annual honours.
As a surgical expert in urology, Dr. Singh says that he started his professional journey from Shekhar Hospital. He later joined Nova Hospital, where he has spent a little over 16 years and still working. In the past six years, Dr. Pratipal Singh has also been the Secretary of the Lucknow Urology Association, which has a combined strength of 90 doctors. He is also proud to share that it is under his supervision as secretary of event, the U.P. Association Urology conference was organised this year, where academicians from the state, national, and international level converged at one place.
So, how did he turn to donning the doctor’s coat? Dr. Singh said that he came from a very humble background. There was one point in life when he could not afford further education. It was good faith of his teachers and help from some well-meaning people that eventually led to him getting coaching and then cracking the CPMT. Only to land a berth in KGMU. In this journey, 2 people who he gives full credit to are Dr. PC Agnihotri and Shri AM Pandey.
He said it was their guidance that helped him get 13th position at the CPMT UP level. While Dr. Singh has carved a niche for himself in the medical fraternity, he feels that one teaching that has truly transformed him is to serve a patient like he or she is a family member.
In his long career, Dr. Singh has done innumerable cases. These include cases of stones, tumors and cancers of kidney, bladder and prostrate. Multiple other diseases of bladder, kidney, the stricture urethra disease among others. One thing that Nova Hospital as of now does not have is Robotic surgery at present. He does around 40 surgeries a month, and his success rate is 90%.
Among the other procedures, he says, he does is, erectile dysfunction, laser surgery, laparoscopic surgery, open surgeries, and also has an emergency ward, which is functioning around the clock.
In his opinion, ultimately, the practice matters, and that is what makes doctor perfect. He further adds that the underlining factor is empathy, emotions, an honest approach, and clean practice.
Talking tech, he says gadgets do not necessarily add to success but definitely add to the cost, secondly he says gadgets do improve results in some surgeries but one might have to look into the fact that how to make them affordable to our society along with return on investment for the institution installing these gadgets.
So what does he want changed in the system? Dr. Singh believes that as medical science and its training changes, one of the drawbacks is that with the number of subdivisions in medical streams increasing, the time frame to become a super specialist needs to be expedited. He is also of the view that doctors are over stressed, and one must also work towards helping them out ease mental and physical aberrations. Lucknow is developing as a medical hub, and with greater connectivity both at the national and the international level, Lucknow promises to be the next medical tourism destination.
Talking of the challenges Dr Pratipal Singh believes that sensitizing the public and the doctors is very important because many are not aware of whom to approach for what physical ailment. Similarly, there needs to be greater awareness among the public about the do’s and don’ts of any and every health issue
Signing off – he says kidney failures i.e rise in creatinine level, can be of two types one is the acute failure which is the sudden problem and can be cured. And the creatinine level can be brought down to even normal by treatment. In case of chronic kidney failure, the creatinine level can not be brought down to normal, and it is a serious condition. Patient must seek specialist care for these types of diseases.
