The folks over at Cinematical.com have been taking an early peak at some of the films that will be playing at this year’s SXSW Film Festival in Austin. This one immediately caught my eye as a film that more people need to know about:
FLYING ON ONE ENGINE captures the story of the severely disabled Dr. Dicksheet, a man who has donated his surgical skills to the cause of alleviating suffering among India’s poor. The film both highlights the problems of cleft lip and other congenital deformities, and also tells the dramatic story of a person risking his life to help those in need. Emphasizing Dr. Dicksheet’s frailty, his surgical brilliance, and the spectacular effects of his actions, this film juxtaposes the Nobel Prize nominated surgeon’s godlike status alongside the incredible desperation of the Indian community in which he serves.
The website of The India Project which Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet (from Brooklyn) runs is filled with inspirational pictures and stories, so I am glad someone has made a documentary about his work to spread the word. He is an eight-time Nobel Prize nominee and although he is himself hobbled by sickness, his patients think of him as a “God” for the help he brings to their lives.
In 1968, Dr. Dicksheet started his first free surgery camps to give dignity, function and opportunity to these otherwise condemned children of India with congenital facial and eye deformities. Each year Dr. Dicksheet spends five to six months in the poorest regions of India conducting free surgery camps…To-date, 64000 surgeries have been performed. Each surgery also impacts an average of 10 family members and 90 relatives and friends. Through Dr. Dicksheet’s human spirit and medical intervention, over 5.5 million people in India have been touched by his life changing surgeries…
In 1978, Dr. Dicksheet met with a serious car accident leaving the right side of his body paralyzed. He managed to recuperate within three years. While recuperating, Dr. Dicksheet continued to travel to India to conduct the free medical camps, and completed his fellowship in cosmetic surgery.
Tragedy struck Dr. Dicksheet again in 1982. Dr. Dicksheet was diagnosed with stage four larynx cancer and had to undergo four major operations followed by radiation therapy and given a life expectancy of two years. One of Dr. Dicksheet’s greatest love was singing classical music. But, Dr. Dicksheet did not lose hope. He continued to travel to India to conduct the free medical camps, learned how to talk using oesophageal speech techniques, and studied further in the specialized field of Plastic Surgery. [Link]
<
p>If you would like to help the filmmaker finish his work you can donate here and join the Facebook group here. Donations directly to The India Project can be made here.
50% of the film’s profits will go to a charity focused on treating severely deformed children. The documentary will also raise awareness of cleft lip and congenital deformities, and help ensure Dr. Dicksheet’s noble quest continues for years to come. [Link]
He is an amazing, inspiring, and dedicated human being who could easily just retire and live an easier life. Instead the Doctor overcomes his own suffering to alleviate others’ troubles. Best wishes to Dr. Dicksheet.
Wow!It is amazing that people like Dr.Dicksheet exist.
Sorry about bringing up a side-note this early: Dicksheet = Dikshith? (as in Bollywood Madhuri?) I apologize for my gutter mind. I am too distracted by “Dick Sheet” 🙁
Not to be the only one but before someone else brings it up, his last name must be ridiculed by many for its similarity to some vulgar slang words.
Dicksheet = Dixit = Dikshith. From what I understand, all should be pronounced closer to Dicksheet.
that man is amazing. thank you so much for posting this.
dixit is a common last name among hindus in andra pradesh and karnataka, and can be spelled a million ways with english orthography given that the word is actually sanskrit…so yeah, he spells it dicksheet– who cares?? can we focus on the INCREDIBLE work he is doing?
Seriously. Inspiring doesn’t even begin to describe this guy.
Wow. And we complain about the little things in life. If everyone even had 1% of the compassion that Dr. Dicksheet has, the world would be a better place.
Abhi: Dixit or Dicksheet as it is spelled by some is typical of Gujarati Naagar Brahmins. Waaay back in early 70’s where I worked for a large engineering firm in downtown Chicago, there was this Sharad Dixit (just a coincidence). He got tired hearing people call him Dick-Shit. Finally he officially changed his name to Dick Sharad. Go figure that.
The Smile Train is a charity specializing in cleft palate surgery for children all over the world.
My,I feel ashamed of myself in comparision to how much this man has done to overcome his own disabilties and in fact is dedicated to helping others and just keeps going at his age!!! this is an inspirational story–i didnt think people like this existed!
i am also amazed that he was paralyzed on the right side of his body–then went on to recuperate and became strong enough to withstand standing for hours in operating rooms and had the manual dexterity to operate!!
Two broken marriages? for this guy? how can someone have the heart to break up with this guy?
actually, i can believe the broken marriages part– i think surgeons have a rather high divorce rate — too much time spent at work, not enough time at home with the wife and kids—people grow apart and relationships falter
Wow! This guy is the gold standard people should be judged by. How many dicksheets are you? 0.002? 0.004?
Bound to the wheelchair, his right side paralysed, his heart capacity at a mere 17 per cent, and suffering from terminal cancer of the larynx, Doctor Sharadkumar Dicksheet performs 50 to 70 operations a day for the disfigured poor of India.
is there any info on the outcomes, complication rate and success rate of these operations? thats a lot of operations in one day , especially for a surgeon who doesn’t have full use of one hand–which means each patient cant be getting much time spent on him/her.
14 · sakshi said
A fantastic notion.
Tarta, My account is anecdotal, I have no documents or links to back me up. I was a medical student when Dr Dicksheet came to our town to conduct surgeries at a camp. A lot of my classmates volunteered at this camp and we were in complete awe and thrall of what we were seeing. At that time, he was almost god incarnate! Few years down the line, when I was doing my surgery residency and rotating through the plastic surgery division, I would occasionally see patients coming in for revision of palate or lip which had broken apart after initial surgery, 2-3 mths later as the child grew up. They had all been operated at the camps by Dr Dicksheet. It was really disappointing to learn of that….its really hard when you find out why these cases were failing. According to the professor at our unit, the surgical techniques which were used by the great man were older (from the 60s and 70s) and proved to have the complications I had seen as the child would grow up. He had not changed to adapt to the newer ways! There was a school of thought in the medical profession (in my town) at that time that if you do your work with good intention, a few slip ups and bad results are ok. As I progressed through my training and became more experienced ( and cynical?) I became opposed to the whole practice of conducting surgeries at a camp. For whatever reasons, organising and conducting surgery camps is a big thing in India ( Eye surgery camps are the commonest, followed by polio surgery, and of course tubectomy/vasectomy camps.) While it is gratifying to announce that xx number of patients were examined and treated, there is usually no proper documentation or followups for these patients. Most patients are too poor to afford medical care and costs of surgery and accept whatever care they get. If the results are bad , they accept it as Fate and God’s wish.
But does providing substandard care to poor illiterate patients become Noble and just , as long as you are doing it with compassion and in good faith? I am still searching for the correct answer…..
westernghaat’s comments, although anecdotal, suggest what i had feared but hesitated to come right out and say –that hapless poor people in india often receive substandard care with “assembly line” surgery via these camps.
i think that cataract surgery camps have a high eye infection rate —before i say this with certainty, i of course should have evidence to back me up–but, i don’t know, does this evidence exist? is there a long term follow up? do we know how these patients are doing at one and two years out from surgery? importantly, what is the infection rate? 70 surgeries a day–how are they ensuring the most stringent sterile precautions? are they reusing instruments? or are they sterilizing the instruments in between?
a middle income person or a rich person would never consent to a surgery in a camp so, is it okay for poor people to receive a different level of care than rich people?
so, is it okay for poor people to receive a different level of care than rich people?
Do they have a choice? Their choice is not between substandard care and higher level of care. If it isn’t for these clinics, they might not get any care. Its lack of affordable care that makes what people like Dr Dicksheet does… not just essential, but noble.
that is a question that society needs to answer — Is it okay for society to say that such substandard care is acceptable for poor people?? can we truly justifying it by saying that they would have no care at all if it werent for assembly line care–is this a slippery slope?? to say that we as a society will say substandard care is perfectly fine for poor people( a level of care that those of us with money would never dream of accepting) is a major ethical question, in my mind.
no care at all isn’t the alternative —excellent health care exists in India –its just that poor people don’t have access to it. so,it might seem like semantics on my part,but it is a key distinction, but this is an issue more of access to good health care, not whether good health care exists. (the question of access to health care is indeed a universal question)
i don’t say all this to criticize this specific doctor –but more as part of a larger debate about access to health care.
And, when you have assembly line camps where a doctor flies in, does 70 surgeries in one day, there is no apparent postoperative follow-up visit and we have no idea whether these people have successful outcomes ( a quick google search didn’t show me any data on long term outcomes or infection rates at these camps)— it is food for thought.
i want to clarify my previous comments; becuase when I re-read how I have phrased my comments; it may sound like all I want to do is criticize Dr Dicksheet —far from it –i am humbled by how dedicated he is to his work, how noble his intentions and efforts are and how despite being disabled , he is a man of principle who remains devoted to doing all that he can for the poorest of the poor —-it is awe-inspiring and humbling. What I am criticizing however, is the state of affairs of health care delivery to the poor–a question for society and government. We wont be doing this man a service if all we do is praise his efforts and go on with our lives as before, without stopping to think about why his efforts are needed in the first place; where in order to be able to help others, he has to create this “assembly line” approach to deliver care.
my point is that the fact that society needs to have a debate on access to health care and how we can do better.
I do not think that anecdotal complication rates should sway an argument on whether Dr. Dicksheet is doing the right operation for the right patient.
There are different techniques to repair a cleft lip. Dr. Dicksheet likely trained when the Tennison repair was commonly done and appears to use this technique (based on the two on-table results in the video). It is done less so now that most cleft surgeons favor the Millard repair, but well respected cleft lip and palate centers in the US still perform the Tennison repair.
The question of surgical camps is a difficult one. I think if a surgeon commits himself/herself to a particular area and returns to that area on a regular basis to follow up on patients and repair complications, then a high standard of care can be delivered.
At the end of the day, indigent care in any country boils down to limited access and resources. I agree that India can do better just as the US can do better. Until then, people like Dr. Dicksheet will continue to work on the front lines. We should all support and applaud those efforts.
the correct pronunciation of the surname, afaik, should be deekshith i.e. one who has obtained dikshaa (the sandhi diksha+ith modifies diksha – the small “e” to “ee”)
I know the Dr. Dicksheet and I just wanted to tell you that Dr. Dicksheet performs the Millard method for correcting Cleft lips.
Also the original spelling of his last name was Dixit, he changed it to Dicksheet when he moved to America so that people could pronounce it better. The correct pronunciation is dick-shit.
WesternGhaat, I agree with your feelings, we should criticize the poor’s access to the health care.