A humane healer

He implanted Bangalore’s first cardiac pacemaker and was on the team of doctors that performed the first open heart surgery in India. Nina C George pays tribute to Dr Benjamin Isaac, the father of cardiac surgery in Karnataka

February 28, 2006

Dr Benjamin Isaac (82), who died in Bangalore on January 1, 2006 was known as the “father of cardiac surgery in Karnataka”. He implanted Bangalore’s first cardiac pacemaker in 1978 at the Church of South India Hospital in Bangalore. He was on the team of doctors that performed the first open heart surgery in India in the 1960s at the Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore.

After his graduation, he joined the Christian Medical College, Vellore from where he graduated and completed his Master of General Surgery and Master of Cardio Thoracic Surgery. Dr Isaac was a research fellow along side the celebrated South African surgeon, Dr Christian Bernard at the Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Michigan, USA, where he was awarded the Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS) in 1964. Dr Isaac, in fact, had opposed Dr Bernard’s works on transplant surgery during the ethical debate on organ transplantation in the American Medical Journal. After his stint in USA he settled in Karnataka in 1966.

Dr Isaac was involved in ethical debates on many an issue like organ transplantation and euthanasia. He had very strong views on the issue of doctor-assisted suicides -— an issue on which he wrote and debated extensively. He believed that a doctor who voluntarily became “the necessary instrument of the patient’s death is as much a moral accomplice as if he has administered the lethal dose himself.”

He was known for his care and compassion towards his patients. He believed that dying patients need more than a prescription. Someone who will not abandon them but unflinchingly help them face both the medical and the personal aspects of dying. Dr Isaac freed Sneha Oommen from the clutches of death 26 years ago. “It’s because of Dr Isaac that I am still alive today. He came as a saviour and breathed new life in me,” said Sneha still active and going strong at 56. John Ravi, a friend of Dr Isaac has this to say about him: “A great man and a visionary indeed. But unfortunately he was a victim of the system. He could not achieve some of his visions because of a warped system. His compassion towards his patients and commitment to his profession can never be disputed.”

Constantly in touch with advances in cardiac care technology he believed that new advances had to be judiciously used if cardiac care experts did not want to price themselves out of the profession. He was of the opinion that listening directly to the heart is still the best method for diagnosis in India since technology hasn’t reached villages. Given the scale of negligence of health care in rural areas, he felt that educating people on how to prevent heart diseases was important. He worked tirelessly to create the modern CSI Hospital in Bangalore and initiated many training programmes to help the poor and needy. After his retirement from the CSI Hospital in 1985, he settled down with his wife in Hoskote where he spent the last days of his life training community health nurses and rural health workers.

The spectre of the AIDS disease looming large over rural India had engaged Dr Isaac's attention during his last few years. As leader of a team engaged in rural AIDS prevention campaign, he devoted all his final years to prevent the spread of this deadly disease in the countryside.

His life was not spent without controversy, as he was an outspoken man with a deep commitment to the growth of the healing ministry of the church in India.

Unfortunately, his views on the Indianiasation of the church in India found few takers, which often left him isolated within his community, but this was compensated by the love and respect the that was showered on him by the Muslim community, his Hindu friends and the Karnataka government which showed their appreciation by awarding him with the Rajyotsava Award in 1979 for his service in the field of health for the people of Karnataka.

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This article posted March 19, 2006.