Knee surgeon Dinesh Patel to have lab named after him
AZIZ HANIFFA
Dr Dinesh Patel, chief of arthroscopic surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital
and associate clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at the Harvard Medical School,
will be honored June 14 with the unveiling
of an Arthroscopic Learning Laboratory at
MGH named after him.
Indians know Patel well for operating on
cricketing legend Kapil Dev before he led
India to victory in the 1983 World Cup. He
has also treated baseball legend Ted
Williams.
Patel told India Abroad that he had to
thank Dr Harry Rubash, chief of the
Department of Orthopedics at MGH,
Thomas Gill, chief of Sports Medicine
Service, MGH, and former chief of arthro-
scopic surgery at MGH Bertram Zarins,
“who all worked tirelessly to make this
teaching and training lab a reality and
insisted that it be named after me.”
They had earlier sought an endowed pro-
Dr Dinesh Patel
fessorship in his name at Harvard, but the
amount required was prohibitive — $4 million to $5 million.
“Then they decided to establish this lab in
my name, and it is indeed such an honor
and I am so grateful to them,” Patel says.
“They wouldn’t take no for an answer and
wanted this lab named after me.”
They wanted to celebrate the contribu-
tions Patel has made to the field since 1974,
and for promoting associated technology
not just in the US, but also in India. They
set up the first lab of its kind in Asia in
2001 in Ahmedabad, where Patel got an
American company to donate $300,000;
the center has trained 800 orthopedic sur-
geons and is Asia’s biggest arthroscopy lab.
“We will have dry models of the knee,
shoulder, elbow, ankle and simulation
machines for training and teaching,” Patel
said. “The main objective will be to teach
and train orthopedic surgeons, residents,
fellows, medical students, nurses, in all of
the facets of arthroscopy surgery and in
hand/eye coordination. The lab will also
help show ways to reduce technical errors
and also how to lower healthcare costs
through these methods.”
Among the several awards he has
received is one from former Massachusetts
governor William Weld: ‘One of the Best
New Immigrants in Massachusetts.’ He also
figured in the US News & World Report’s
acclaimed Best Doctors List in February
2002.
Using cultural motivators
to bring social change
SHALINI KATHURIA NARANG
Industry-wide best practices in social enterprises, advice
on raising finances for societal causes, future trends leaders in philanthropy were among the many topics discussed
at ‘The Transformative Potential of Social Entrepreneurship’ summit at the Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, May
24.
The American India Foundation hosted the event in
partnership with the Stanford University Center for South
Asia.
The program opened with comments from David
Bornstein, author of How to Change the World and Social
Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.
“Fresh water is the oldest public health problem of the
world. Scalable social change happens when we have great
institutions beyond great ideas. Entrepreneurs build great
institutions and are significant for bringing about social
change but human behavior is a vital factor in social
change and cultural motivators play an important role,” he
said.
As an example, he said, in rural India “the inspiration of
being able to serve clean water to guests worked better
than saying that your children can get clean drinking water
as there’s a cultural emphasis on generosity towards out-
siders and outward appearances.”
A panel on ‘Social Entrepreneurship: Experience,
Learning and the Future’ followed the keynote.
Jim Bunch, director of investments at Omidyar Network,
said ventures “that show an ability to scale and sustain in
the long run are the winners for funding. The trend is
towards a bottom-up solution. Innovative social enterpris-
es seeking solutions to the demands of rapid urbanization
in India and enterprises with emphasis on reaching the
rural populations with a pilot to showcase their strengths
are good cases of the kind we seek to fund.”
Christy Chin, portfolio director at Draper Richards
Foundation, said the development of efficient capital mar-
kets for social enterprises on the lines that regular profit
ventures use is vital.
Leila Chirayath Janah, founder of Samasource, said “sou-
rcing good and services from the poor to bring them into
the supply chain is a good way for businesses to do well.”
Teens shine at SAYA! annual do
A CORRESPONDENT
“I’m not perfect,” cried a diminutive girl in a hijab, one
of a group of teens performing in Minds of the
Misunderstood, a skit about love and expectations performed at the South Asian Youth Action’s premises in
Elmhurst, Queens, in New York, May 22. A loud cheer
went up from the crowd of 120, when one participant
said true love was possible only if one could love oneself.
Clearly, he had struck a chord.
The skit was part of SAYA!’s annual event to showcase
the efforts of the youth, held in the First Presbyterian
church in Elmhurst, the basement of which serves as the
SAYA! office. The program included skits and perform-
ances by various groups, including those from Middle
School 137, Richmond Hill High School and Flushing
High School. Desi Girls, one of SAYA!’s own groups, had
a skit on stereotypes and the South Asian girl; and an art
exhibition by the students of Richmond Hill High
School. In Digital Stories, students exhibited pictures
they took of their family and community, including tem-
ples and schools.
Teens perform at the SAYA!
annual do at the First
Presbyterian church in
Elmhurst, Queens, New York
