Guyana gets its first Neurosurgeon

[www.inewsguyana.com] – Dr. Amarnauth Dukhi has become Guyana’s first neurosurgeon and will be stationed at the Georgetown Public Hospital from January 2015.

He is young, brilliant, well trained and aptly qualified to live up to his well garnered credentials and his unwavering desire to boost Guyana’s medicare.

“It’s something that I have always wanted to do,” he told the Government Information Agency.

He said Guyana’s situation is one that it evolving; its incipient ground work augurs well too, “because of the patients’ needs (distance of abode and unique medical condition), the neurological department at the GPHC will be ever ready to receive the patients, after stabilising is first effected. So the hope is that something will be worked out, to facilitate ‘ease’ and ‘speed’ of movement, from that point of encountering the ailment to the GPHC.”

The youthful and ‘rearing to go doctor’ opined that this kind of ‘rapid response’ culture must now be a priority for the regional health system, so that the entire process becomes even more effective, that is, from learning about a situation, stabilising a far-off patient (no matter where), and then actually having that patient at the best place possible-the department at the GPHC.

Dr. Dukhi’s journey began in Skeldon, Corriverton, where he was born. Attending the Skeldon Line Path Secondary School, he wrote the Caribbean Examinations Council exams in 1995 and was adjudged the third best graduating student. He then immediately entered the University of Guyana, and soon after completed a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Biology and Bio Chemistry in 1999.

After this, he worked for a short while, before he got his scholarship through the Government of Guyana’s “Cuban Scholarship Programme.”

This he gladly took up, and thus acquired a Bachelor’s of Medicine in 2006; being quite a prodigy, he copped the Best Graduating Student. He then returned to Guyana, fulfilling necessary contract commitments in serving fellow Guyanese and the Government for three years. His major stints were at the GPHC and the New Amsterdam Hospital.

Before completing the neurosurgical programme, Dr. Dukhi actually further fortified himself in the medical arena: he completed a ‘double master’s programme, specialising in comprehensive general and family medicine. The neurosurgical programme was then conducted by Havana’s principal neurosurgeons.

Tracing his academic history, Dr. Dukhi recalled that when he first received the opportunity to specialise in this (second) field, it was natural for him to take it. This, he said was primarily because there was no such expert here locally. He also was moved by the fact that it was too costly to send patients overseas for treatment, and this was extra-arduous for even some of the rich folks.

Training for this scholar was within the principal neurosurgery programme, conducted at the University of Havana, at the Calixto Garcia Medical University Hospital in Cuba. This began in early January 2010.

“It was a great experience. That was the centre of neuro trauma, and it was also the principal programme, where the Cuban government trains neuro surgeons for the world at large-the country, South America, Latin America and the entire world,” Dr. Dukhi stated.

He added that, “It was a great advantage to study at the Galixto Garcia Medical University Hospital, knowing the history and all the good doctors and specialists coming out of there. That was an opportunity I used over the last five years, to become who I am today, and it is something that I plan to use in the near future, so that I can serve Guyana and its people.”

Dr. Dukhi explained that he was placed at the GPHC, as part of the public health care system, where health care is given to all Guyanese, free of cost.

[Extracted and modified from GINA]