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What a sight!
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Ophthalmologist Mohan Rajan on his remarkable journey
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Photo: N. Balaji
Visionary Dr Mohan Rajan
In his prescription to patients on post-surgery eye care, Dr. Mohan Rajan must slip a pill for inspired poetry. T. Padmasini, an elder wrote: “For my right eye I should thank Dr. Sujatha Mohan and for my left Dr. Mohan Rajan under whose able hands I got vision…”
Said Sandhya Ramachnadran, student: “…Rajan Eye Care Hospital …is a second home to me. This is where my retinal hole was patched up through cryogenic surgery. This is where they strengthened my retina using laser. Both times, I felt I was in safe hands….”
“Call me a genetic ophthalmologist,” says Dr. Mohan, whose father and grandfather had specialised in ophthalmology. “Mine was a one-track journey — ophthalmology,” he says.
A remarkable journey it was too. Cricketer, golfer, athlete, speaker — and now eye surgeon, Dr. Mohan brings frontier knowledge and state-of-the-art techniques to the thousands of hopefuls queuing up at his hospital. At RECH and the sister Chennai Vision Charitable Trust, 30 per cent of all out-patient procedures is done gratis. A separate block organises transportation, food, accommodation and foldable lens implantation for poor patients in a 150-km radius.
Since 1997, the Rotary Rajan Eye Bank has performed more than 1,200 free corneal transplant surgeries.
In 2007, Dr. Mohan launched the ‘Blind-free India – a reality’, a project to take professional eye care to the rural doorstep.
“My father insisted on part of the work at Rajan Eye Care being completely free. Sankara Nethralaya, where I trained, has the same philosophy.”
Returning a favour
He also sees it as pay-back obligation. “My education was subsidised by tax rupees. I’m a doctor today with your money. It’s my responsibility to give back something.”
His initiation into charitable work came early, when as a Class VII student in PSBB, he volunteered for the after-school each-one-teach-one programme.
He noticed his student Palani holding his books very close to his eyes and reported this to his dad. Palani was diagnosed with a -12 myopia.
“I asked my father to provide him free glasses and my classmates to pitch in with cash to buy him vitamins. Palani’s joy in being able to see clearly sparked my decision to become an eye surgeon,” he says.
Twenty-five years later, Palani returned, and this time, “I diagnosed his problem and restored 90 per cent of his vision through retinal attachment. He has a government job and I hear he has my photo in his puja area,” he laughs.
Dr. Mohan warmly acknowledges wife Dr. Sujatha’s contribution in making Rajan Eye Care a major centre in Asia in just 13 years.
“Yet, there’s so much more to be done.”
GEETA PADMANABHAN
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