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Giving athletes a fresh lease of life

Jose Schiller puts injured sportspersons on their feet

HEALING TOUCH Schiller Jose

Schiller Jose had no choice. "You do the surgery yourself, I'm not going to consult any other doctor," said India's most famous football player. And Dr. Schiller put the surgeon's knife on one of the costliest knees in Indian sport. I.M. Vijayan went back to Thrissur to rejoin the Kerala team that was playing in the Santosh Trophy championship in his hometown. He played and scored a goal. Dr. Schiller's career took a different turn. The year was 2000.

Now, about the first thing an athlete in Kerala - and in many other States too - does when he or she sustains a serious injury is to find out Dr. Schiller's telephone number.

Athletes from places such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Goa and Hyderabad also come down to Kozhikode to consult him. He is regarded as one of the few experts in what is still a relatively new branch of medicine in India.

But he had all but stopped practising sports medicine when Vijayan came to meet him at National Hospital in Kozhikode that April morning six summers ago.

Sports medicine

"I was just another orthopaedic surgeon at that time, though I had taken a degree in Sports Traumatology from Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris way back in 1992. I was planning to stay back in France, as I knew there was no scope for sports medicine in India."

But he returned to Kerala because his wife wanted to do her post-graduation from Government Medical College in Kozhikode. "That meant I had to live in Kozhikode till she finished her course at least, and I had no money. I needed a job badly; I first went to Baby Memorial Hospital and was told that they would consider me when they open a department of sports medicine. Then I went to National Hospital and they asked me to join as an orthopaedic surgeon.

"Yes, I knew that I was bidding adieu to sports medicine, which I had been practising in Paris till I came to Kozhikode. I also did a postgraduate course in Orthopaedics from KMC, Manipal. It may sound strange, yes; normally it's the other way around - you specialise in sports traumatology after completing your orthopaedics."

He was leading a busy life as an orthopaedic surgeon and had almost forgotten that at one time his ambition was to treat injured sportspersons.

"Then came Vijayan. I told him that he should go to some other doctors outside Kerala who were experienced in treating sports injuries. But he refused. I think Vijayan came to me because somebody in Thrissur - which is also my hometown - told him about me." Vijayan's recovery was fast. The news about it spread even faster.

"It was reported in the newspapers that I had performed some sort of a miracle, which was not true at all," says Dr. Schiller.

"I have since treated footballers, including Jo Paul Ancheri, Abdul Hakkim and Bineesh, volleyball player Tom Joseph and powerlifter Blessy Job."

Dr. Schiller says people are becoming more aware of sports medicine these days in Kerala.

P.K. AJITH KUMAR

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