All the glory to GOD, who provided me with everything I needed throughout my life. Prof. Baiju came in to my life in the right time as an answer of my prayers for last four years. I have always wanted to do my fellowship in GI surgery in a center where MIS is incorporated to the training. The only option was to do it abroad but two concerns were always there to be addressed; Affordability and getting hands on training as a foreign graduate. Thanks to Prof Baiju and SEF both of my concerns were well addressed and i finished my training as happiest man on earth. I got fellowship without any fee and got hands on training much more than I expected, independently operated on his patients sometimes even without him coming to OT at all.
I came to know prof. Baiju Sir through his foundation SEF on WhatsApp group. A week after joining SEF WhatsApp group I saw a notice about surgical oncology fellowship. With in a couple of days I applied and next morning I received an email from prof. Baiju that I was selected for the fellowship in Surgical oncology and advanced MIS. It was like kind of NEWS ‘too good to be true’ and I couldn’t believe my eyes and showed it to my wife and she said yea it says you have been selected. I fully understood how that happened after meeting prof. Baiju Sir in person, he is a man of action in every thing he does, zero bureaucracy. First the time I met Prof Baiju sir was on July 3, 2023 at his office. We had conversation for about five minutes and asked how my travel was, my experience in surgery and others. Then he said less go to operation theater and I thought he was going to introduce me to OT staffs. For my surprise he asked me to a scrub in for laparoscopic surgery ready for the day. Then the surgery was started with cholecystectomy, then hysterectomy and IPOM, mesh repair of incisional hernia and done in one hour and 10 minutes. Then I said to myself, man you are in the right place and be ready to learn everything not only the skills of procedure. The way it was planned and executed, one after the other and the harmony among the team was second to none I have ever seen before.
Being trainee under prof. Baiju gives you unique opportunity because you get exposed to all laparoscopic procedure at one stop. From simple hernias to most complex procedure, chole to lap Whipple procedure, esophagectomy to LAR and APR, Bariatric procedure to liver resections, nephrectomies, and hysterectomies etc. As you get involved in more and more of these procedures you not only get skills how to do certain specific procedure, of course some of them will require further training to perform, but you learn a lot about preoperative planning, patient positioning, port positioning, proper energy device usage and most importantly laparoscopic anticipatory anatomy and more.
As a surgeon from Ethiopia where MIS surgery service is still at its infancy period, the training I got under prof, Baiju is ideal because he does not commonly use fancy things which makes it possible to apply whatever I learned to apply in our resource limited setups. The gap between Africa and other part of the world especially the west in MIS could be more than 30 years. And the west is more and more towards robotic surgery and other fancy innovations to make life of
surgeons easier and make surgery safer, which is very good thing as the world of surgery should keep on growing. However, it is important to make sure that LMICs are also not left behind. Thus, what prof. Baiju doing under Senadhipan education foundation is not only training surgeons how to do laparoscopic surgeries rather it is an act serving justice to global surgery for the benefit of underprivileged population.
I am very much grateful to Prof, for everything that happened to me in the past one year. Prof, Baiju was not only great Surgeon and mentor but he is also caring father figure to fellows in everything during our stay in Kerala, India, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. He is a great surgical educator who never compromises patient care for the sake of training yet gives maximum opportunity to trainees to get hands on training at the same time. I believe I have learned not only how to perform laparoscopic procedure safely but also how to teach others to make sure the ball keeps on rolling.
As the saying goes ‘the best away to pay back to the best mentor is paying it forward’. I will keep passing on the knowledge and skills I have learned under prof. Baiju Senadhipan mentorship so that many are benefited; both young surgeons who aspire to incorporate MIS into their practice and more importantly patients experience all the benefits of MIS. Thank you again Sir for everything!
God Bless you and your beloved ones richly!!
Sincerely,
Efeson Thomas MD, FCS(ECSA)
SEF Alumni
