Thursday 4 April 2013

how i became and Embryologist!!
i always wanted to be a general surgeon since i got into medical school but i was not the most hardworking student.i always scored average in my exams but i got a decent 60% in my final year and i was content with the marks i scored but not My father! My old Man is like an old fashioned military dictator always demanding perfection,myself on the other hand was content being an average joe!!
after i passed my final year MBBS i was completing my 1 year compulsory internship at the OSMANIA general hospital which is the biggest Govt. hospital in all of Andhra Pradesh.
during my surgical stint there i assisted quite a lot in various kinds of surgeries and had made up my mind that i wanted to be a surgeon.however certain events happened during the course of my internship and i found myself working at My parents fertility clinic every evening from 4 pm to 10 pm.
i was handling administration and counselling patients,taking their consent etc before procedure,mostly non clinical work.it used to be tiring as hell because i had to report for internship at osmania everyday at 9 sharp and finish work at 3 pm and get to work at my parents clinic by 4 pm.
twice a week i used to be on call at osmania general so i used to go without sleep for 36 to 40 hours at a stretch.my Folks would tell me not to attend the fertility clinic and concentrate on my entrance exam for post graduation but i knew in My heart that i had to step in and handle Administration because my father would not be able to do so for atleast another year and My mother had zero experience for it! my folks had put in a  lot of effort to get where they were in life and i could not just sit by the side and watch their Dream go sour!!
now any Doctor who has worked in a Government run hospital in INDIA will tell you that it is not the easiest place to work,the facilities for patients are not the best and infra structure at times can be appalling! lots of times Doctors and interns find themselves at their innovative best trying to overcome these shortcomings!!
Osmania General Hospital is one of the oldest hospitals in India located at Afzal Gunj, Hyderabad.. It was built during the time of the Last Nizam, Osman Ali Khan, and is named after him.
It is run by the Government of Andhra Pradesh
however working in a government hospital in India gives Doctors the best experience to handle diffficult situations because of the sheer volume of patients that come in there on a daily basis,this is one reason i believe Indian Doctors are the best in the world for practical skill and experience because
so i was working at osmania and at my clinic handling administration.
working at my parents clinic i slowly got drawn towards embryology,i started of by simply observing the resident embryologist and it truly amazed me that a single cell which is less than 120 microns in size develops into 100 cells right in front of your eyes in a matter of 5 days and 9 months later a baby results from the work that an embryologist does in the lab.
a surgeon saves lives but an embryologist creates lives!! anyhow i was studying in whatever remaining remaining time i got because i had not given up on being a surgeon yet but after a while the resident embryologist quit and we had to hire free lance embryologists from other cities/countries even because India at that time had a real dearth of good quality embryologists.
however the pregnancy rates with these professionals was hardly upto the mark and at that time i decided that i will myself train to be an embryologist.
i trained at various centres in INDIA and Abroad for more than a year because India does not have a recognised course for Embryology still which is really stupid because india has perhaps the maximum # of ivf clinics in the world!!
anyhow after my training was complete i started working full time as a Embryologist since 2008 and i am proud to say that i have helped more than 2000 infertile couples to have children through various procedure like IUI/IVF/ICSI and Surrogacy.
 i recently completed my Masters in Andrology and Men's health from Edith Cowan university Australia