Dr P Jagannath
Actor Amitabh Bachchan , who was operated on by Dr Jagannath for diverticulitis in 2015, was present along with poet and lyricist Gulzar, who was also a patient of the doctor.
Mumba i: Medicine risks losing its human touch as healthcare becomes increasingly driven by technology, scans and commercial health checks, said veteran cancer surgeon Dr P Jagannath, who has spent four decades in medicine and is credited with helping establish hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) surgery in India. “We have to make medicine patient-centric,” Jagannath said during the launch of his memoir on Friday. Jagannath, who worked at Tata Memorial Hospital for decades, told TOI there is an urgent need to make medicine noble again. “Human touch is the most important thing in medical practice,” he said. His mother’s cancer journey, he said, changed him. We needed to go beyond treatment,” he said.
Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, whose mother was operated on by Jagannath, was also present. Seeing cancer from a caregiver’s perspective made him realise how patients feel and suffer. “It made me realise that whatever we were doing in medicine was not enough. That belief led to India Cancer initiative, aimed at providing people with reliable information and support. In Telangana , his team is taking disease screening to people’s homes, using technology to identify those at risk of diabetes, hypertension and cancers of the breast, cervix and oral cavity.