This doctor carries ahead his family’s tradition

As a nine-year-old, Dr CN Purandare was in awe of his 80-year-old gynaecologist grandfather whose clinic was always filled with grateful patients. Dr NA Purandare inspired his grandson to follow his footsteps and the boy did exactly that.
    
CN Purandare returned from London, last week, where he was awarded honorary fellowship to the Royal College of Obstretians and Gynaecologists for his global contribution to women’s health. What made the fellowship special was the fact that he was the third recipient from the family to have received the honour. His grandfather had received the same fellowship in the 1950s, followed by his uncle, Dr BN Purandare.  

“Perhaps it was destined to come back in the family,” CN Purandare, president, Federation of Obstetric & Gynaecological Societies of India, said.

Even though the modest gynaecologist has made his mark in a profession that his grandfather had excelled at, Purandare still prefers to dwell in his grandfather’s achievements. “I owe my life to him — he was the gynaecologist who ‘delivered’ me,” Purandare said. “It was my grandfather who influenced me to become a doctor. At the age of 88, when he fell ill and doctors could not help him, I decided I would grow up to be a doctor.”

Purandare, who is the first Indian doctor to perform an intra uterine surgery on a foetus with posterior urethral valve obstruction, even has a surgical procedure named after him.

It is called ‘Purandare’s Modification of Radical Wertiems Hysterectomy’, which results in increased survival rate following cervical cancer surgery. “It feels very satisfying because my grandfather would have been proud of me,” Purandare said.