Indian-American surgeon on a mission to save lives on Indian roads

Washington, Feb 16: An Indian-American surgeon is on a mission to save thousands of lives that are lost on Indian roads every day with an innovative training programme for trauma first responders using a $200,000 simulator dummy. Rajasthan University educated surgeon Dr. Dinesh Vyas, an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at Michigan State University since 2011, estimates that the number of road deaths in India would in 10 years swell four times from current 1,000 a day. "It's a shameful figure for me as a physician," he told IANS in an email interview outlining his strategy that could easily save at least half of the road accident victims, most of whom are sole earning members of their families. "I can change the trauma situation with my existing team of 40 US surgeons and 50 Indian faculty members in the next four years," said Vyas. He visits India four times a year to build up collaboration across the country to make it a self-sustaining process. Most of Vyas's team is made up of surgeons and researchers of Indian origin settled in the US and the UK. They have also formed an Indian American Surgeons Association with close to 1,000 members many of whom are interested in the cause of trauma care. His team is also in touch with state governments in several states including Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Telangana, 15 medical schools and NITI Ayog to extend the programme across India.