In 2022, I was assigned to a rural posting that many would describe as “challenging.”
My daily routine involved a 110 km commute on a shabby highway — only to reach a facility with no proper OPD room, no table, no basic infrastructure, and a handful of patients from an understandably skeptical community.
A senior colleague shifted his plaster room so I could have a space of my own.
A retired pharmacist, after seeing me work through the scorching heat, donated an office chair and an AC.
A broken table from the junk store (which I still use), an examination couch from emergency, curtains arranged from wherever possible — piece by piece, we built an OPD.
But infrastructure wasn’t the real challenge.
The operation theatre was defunct. One technician. One anaesthetist. And an unspoken expectation — “Start the show.”
Within the first week, I performed my first surgery there.
We began with perineal, breast, and skin surgeries under regional and local anaesthesia — fissures, fistulae, hemorrhoids — one after another.
Gradually, with careful planning and calculated risk-taking, we expanded to herniotomies in children under five, mastectomies, open cholecystectomies, herniorrhaphies, and more.
From 3 patients a day, we grew to 30.
From one surgery, to 50 surgeries a month.
Against all odds — and the odds were strong — we built a functioning surgical unit.
And today, that same center has a donated laparoscopic unit.
This journey has been a powerful reminder that systems are not built by infrastructure alone. They are built by goodwill, trust, teamwork, and the courage to begin before conditions are perfect.
For me, this chapter represents a challenge well accepted, a resolve well kept, and progress truly delivered.
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