BENGALURU:As a boy from the small village of Asode, Udupi, Dr Ananthram Shetty began school as the only student in his class. “There were no schools at that time and my father decided to start a school with a single teacher just for me. When I reached class five a few other students joined me,” he says.
From such humble beginnings to the pinnacles of the medical field as a top surgeon in the UK, Dr Shetty has come a very long way. The journey however was not rosy.Dr Shetty wanted to become a doctor early on and was inspired by his brother who studied general medicine.
He topped his II PU and got selected to enter the IITs as well as to study medicine. He however had made his decision long time back. Dr Shetty did his MBBS at KIMS, Hubbali and topped his course.
“I loved anatomy and I knew that I wanted to become a surgeon. I studied gynaecolgy but was not at all interested,” he says. The next three years was hard as he was not able to do his post-graduation. “I was not able to get a seat due to certain circumstances so I started working in a nursing home as a resident doctor. It was a difficult time. A well wisher soon saw my potential and decided that he wanted to send me abroad,” he says.
With $20 in his pocket he reached the UK in November 1985. He passed his Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) exam, a requirement for all gradaute doctors to practice in the UK. He also started preparing for the Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS).
“The temperatures are very low in the UK. I and a few friends would study inside the subways as tit was warm. We would go inside from 5pm to 12pm. Soon we would get hungry and for food we would go to a Hare Krishna temple. While my friends would mop the floor for the food, I would engage in the philosophy of religion with the temple priest,” says Shetty who is well read in the Hinduism as well as Christianity.
He received the fellowship and did his postgraduation in surgery. He also landed his first job as an oncology surgeon at the Medway Maritime Hospital in Kent, around tis time. Soon after, he did his PhD from Hanseo University, South Korea concentrating on stem cell, cartilage transplant, bone and robotic surgery.
Presently, he is the Chair of Orthopedics and Director of Research, Institute of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Health and Wellbeing and of programme director MCh in Surgery Institute of Medical Sciences, Canterbury Christ church University of Kent. His list of achievements and awards are many. Some of them are the Clinical Excellence award 2017, Essex Medical Society UK at the House of Lords, the Public health award by Hanseo University, South Korea in 2015 and the 2011 Laing & Buisson Surgical Innovation Award in UK.