Healthcare

The most senior practicing consultant surgeon, with a medical career spanning over 57 years to date, Dr. B.J. Masakorala was honoured with an honorary fellowship of the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka at the inauguration of the 42nd annual academic sessions of the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka joint meeting with the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh recently. Dr. Masakorala, born in 1930 was the most senior surgeon among a distinguished list of nine Sri Lankan and foreign fellowship receivers. They were honoured for the recognition of their exceptional contribution to the Sri Lankan surgery and/or surgical training, national/international surgical leadership. Dr. Masakorala hailing from the southern province started his primary schooling in Hikkaduwa, where he excelled in his studies and is considered to be the only doctor living to have received the prestigious Denhem Scholarship awarded by the British Government in 1940. He entered English school Hikkaduwa, after receiving the scholarship for the Southern Province, Galle electorate. One of his batch mates in Hikkadaduwa is the current president of Economic Association of Sri Lanka, Prof.A.D.V . de S.Indraratne. Later he entered, Richmond College Galle, where he was a student under Abrahim Kovoor who taught botany and zoology and then moved to Ananda College, Colombo in 1947. He excelled in his studies at Ananda College, and passed the matriculation examination conducted by University of London and was also awarded the Zoology prize at the university entrance examination. One of his close colleagues at the medical college was Prof. Nanadasa Kodagoda, incidentally who was also a Denhem scholar from the southern province. In 1956, Dr. Masakorala passed his MBBS examination from University of Colombo when internship was first introduced. He was fortunate to assist Dr. P.R. Anthonis as a medical student. His first internship was at Galle general hospital where incidentally it was his last outstation posting among many, before he moved to General Hospital Colombo in 1985. He recalls his posting in Deniyaya hospital as District Medical Assistant (DMA) in the late 1950s (1958-1960) where he had gained wide experience in the use of chloroform anaesthesia for obstetrics manoeuvres. He also recalls judicial post mortems on decomposed bodies after trekking the jungle. He believes that the experience he got was unique and that the modern day surgeons would not believe or be exposed to such difficult circumstances as the technology was not so advanced during the immediate post independent era. Then he moved to Maharagama cancer hospital as senior house officer where he was involved in treating cancer of the cervix and uterus. He then came to general hospital, Colombo in 1962 and worked under Dr. K.G. Jayasekara and as the registrar of the thoracic unit under A.T.S. Paul. Later in 1963 he was posted to Castle Street hospital and he recalls that he was fortunate to work under Prof. Henry Nanayakkara and was to take up obstetrics and gynaecology. But due to change of policy on scholarships at that time, under the guidance of Prof. Nannayakkara he chose the path of surgery and departed to United Kingdom for his further studies. In 1968, Dr. Masakorala completed his FRCS (Edin) at the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburg, UK, and decided to come back to Sri Lanka to serve his country. He has had a distinguished career as a surgeon which he started in 1969, from Nuwara Eliya and then to Kegalle, Matara, Galle and retired as the senior surgeon after serving five years at the general hospital Colombo from 1985-1990. During his outstation period he recalls, that he met so many friends from various professions such as, judiciary, police, army, planters and businessmen, to date with whom he keeps in touch. He also recalls the 1971 insurgency while in Kegalle where his life was under threat for performing duties at the Kegalle hos-

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TUESDAY AUGUST 27, 2013

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College of Surgeons honours oldest practicing surgeon Dr. B.J. Masakorala

Harcourts to increase pharmacy chain
The 25 year old Phar ma Company with the largest chain of pharmacies in the country is looking to increase its market share to reach 50 outlets by the end of 2014. Speaking at a press conference its Chairman, Ahamed Rheyas stated that the retail outlets do not give profits but he says its enhances the visibility of the company and it is a plat form to showcase, most of the specialties of Harcourts. I am passionate about retail chains and we are focused. We have our regular customers who patronise Harcourts. We have the loyalty Card and a Door-to-Door delivery in Colombo which has won the admiration of our customers. Customer is the King and we are dedicated to serve them, irrespective of the volume we do on door-to-door delivery . We h av e F a s t - T r a c k Service to the senior citizens

With Royal College President Ian Ritchie

Ahamed Rheyas

and we have qualified pharmacists to dispense drugs, despite threats and provocation we have relentlessly continued to give value added service to our customers. The newly appointed M a n a g i n g D i r e c t o r I vo r Fernando is going all out in all facets of activity at our chain to fulfil and achieve the Chairmans vision, he stated at the news briefing.

A GSK seminar for pharmacists in progress

GSK seminars benefit more than 500 pharmacy staff

More than 500 employees of phar macies have been provided valuable infor mation and guidance through a series of seminars conducted this year by GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK), as a service to the sector. Three seminars held in Kiribathgoda, Thalawathugoda and Kandy under GSKs Phar macy E d u c a t i o n P r o g r a m c ov ered topics such as Quality Assurance in Pharmaceuticals, Childhood Nutrition, Management of Asthma, Selling Skills and Customer Care, and also provided important updates on regulatory matters, the company said. Presentations were made by experts from the company as well as administrators from agencies responsible for the pharmaceuticals sector. The principal objectives of the program, which was initiated by GSK several years ago, is to improve the quality of service offered to customers of phar macies through enhancing the knowledge of pharmacists and promoting compliance with regulatory requirements and best practices. Participants at these seminars include qualified pharmacists, pharmacy assistants and apprentice pharmacists. As a global pharmaceutical company and industry leader, GSK is committed to contributing to the quality of healthcare in the country by supporting and encouraging professional development of those serving the sector, said Sri Lanka GSK Phar maceuticals Managing Director Stuart Chapman. Knowledgeable pharmacists are integral to the development of professionalism in the dispensing of medicines in Sri Lanka. He said similar seminars are to be conducted in Jaffna, Kurunegala, and Galle, in the course of the year under this initiative. GSK has also sponsored the production by the Phar maceutical Society of Sri Lanka (PSSL) of a handy guide for students preparing for the External Pharmacists Examination conducted by the Ceylon Medical College Council. The first publication of its kind in Sri Lanka, the 176-page book contains question papers from past examinations and a section containing practical calculations and directions for preparations that are done at pharmacies. One of the worlds leadi n g re s e a rch - b a s e d p h a rmaceutical and healthcare companies, GSK and its predecessors have been doing business in Sri Lanka since the late 1930s. Globally, 1,100 prescriptions are written for GSK products every minute. GSK is the only phar ma ceuticals company to tackle the three priority diseases identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO): HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

pital. From his young days, Dr. Masakorala loved swimming as he says, Hikkaduwa, his hometown gave him the best opportunity for him to become a good swimmer and a diver. He recalls Hikkaduwa those days, in a few words and says, It was a beautiful beach and a reef with thousands of coral fish surrounded by pandanus (wetakeiya) around the beach, but today, the beauty of Hikkaduwa has disappeared in his eyes. In fact the surgeon won university colours for swimming in 1954 and was involved heavily with Dr. H.S. Perera to raise funds for the Ananda College swimming pool. In his career as surgeon, he has attended to thousands of patients from various parts of Sri Lanka. He recalls his outstation postings as most memorable, where he says those patients have enormous gratitude to him even today. Among his patients were many film industry personalities. Late Sir Arthur C. Clarke too was one of his regular patients. Even to date, he says, patients come from outstation to consult him and to get his opinion for surgery. But he says at the age of 83, he only does minor surgery now and guides the patients to his colleagues and students. His main interests were thyroid surgery and pancreatic surgery and he has done over 2000 goitre surgeries and whiples surgery as well. One of the main passions of Dr. Masakorala was to put his experience into paper and to teach young medical students whenever he was free and give them the opportunity to learn. Among some of his papers published, the first was in 1975, on Necrotizing Enteritis talk given to the College of Surgeons Ceylon. This was published in the Ceylon Medical Journal, 1976, Vol 21. He has continued to read papers since then and some of his papers are on obstructive jaundice, F.N.A.C. of thyroid gland, techniques of hepaeto enterostomy and then went on to read papers on side mirror injuries and later on the 1987 Pettah bomb blast, where he was the surgeon in charge of the National Hospital. Dr. Masakorala says that he received two opportunities to serve in the United States and through the British Gover nment in Africa, where he and his family was offered to migrate for work. He says his children were offered US or British education while he would serve in those countries, but he had decided otherwise as he always thought that his duty was to serve the country where he got his free education. Once he retired, he recalls late H.K. Dharmadasa, the founder of Nawaloka Hospital inviting him to join as a visiting surgeon. Dr. Masakorala says that he has a moderate approach to private medical practice and says that it is an important element for the medical industry to develop, as the private sector invested in technology at that time where the government hospitals did not have such facilities. He also says that it gave people who could afford, an option to reduce the burden on the public healthcare system, but at the same time he says, when poor patients came to him he would not charge them and would always

With Edinburgh College of Surgeons Sri Lanka President of Surgeons Prof. Ranil Fernando

direct them to his students at the national hospital, with a letter. Dr. Masaskorala, fondly called as MAS by his friends, says that he loved playing tennis and he cultivated this hobby whilst he was stationed out of Colombo and was fortunate to take time to meet other government officials at the tennis clubs where the good old days socialising happened. He served as the president of the planters club, Kegalle in 1974 and then assumed president of tennis club Matara in 1977, and also became the president of the Health Department Sports Club, Colombo from 2005-2007, where he stills plays tennis with his wife, son and friends. At the honorary fellowship presentation Prof. A.H. Sheriffdeen (Consultant Surgeon), who gave the citation, recalled that he and Dr. Masakorala served at the national hospital Colombo where MAS served as the senior surgeon and he as a lecturer and that their friendship was a long standing one. Dr. R. Ajanthan, (consultant paediatrician), Dr. Narendra Pinto (consultant orthopaedic surgeon), Dr. Ananda Perera, (consultant orthopaedic surgeon), Dr. Ratansena (consultant surgeon), Dr. Sudeera Herath (consultant surgeon), Dr. Tillkawardena, (consultant surgeon), Dr. Ajith Karunaratna (thoracic surgeon) and Dr. Ramsub were some of the senior house officers who worked under Dr. Masakorala. Dr. Masakorala is married to Bandu and has two children, Shiromi and Rohan.

Younger Dr. B.J.M.

Golden Key Hospital strengthens Eye Investigation Unit with new equipment
The Golden Key Eye & ENT hospital, the first private super-specialty category hospital in Sri Lanka, has acquired the latest Corneal Topography Unit to strengthen its eye investigation capabilities. A non-invasive medical imaging technique for mapping the surface curvature of the cornea, corneal topography is considered a vital diagnostic tool in any ophthalmology practice. Since the majority of the refractive power of the eye is in the cornea, topography can be critical in determining the quality of a patients vision, the hospital said. Computerised three-dimensional corneal topography allows measuring of corneal curvature with great precision, helping eye surgeons to accurately assess pre-operative corneal curvature, to plan appropriate refractive procedures and closely monitor surgical outcomes in refractive operations, a spokesman for the hospital explained. The new equipment acquired is also immensely helpful in identifying corneal diseases such as kerotoconus and in fitting as well as following up the use of contact lenses. The state-of-the-art Corneal Topography Unit is an easy-to-use device with userfriendly software which automatically maps the cornea in quick time after eye centring and focusing. The Management of the Golden Key Hospital is of the view that this equipment would further facilitate the hospitals mission of offering all eye-related investigations and treatment under one roof, the spokesman added. In addition to the acquisition of the new equipment, the hospitals operating theatre was recently equipped with the latest vitreo retinal surgical machine Alcon Constellation USA. Two of the latest versions of Phaco emulsification machines from INFINITY USA are also available for Cataract operations. A centre of excellence for eye and ENT related investigations, treatment and surgery, the Golden Key Eye & ENT Hospital is equipped for all eye-related investigations including Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and treatment of all eye diseases. Tests such as Fundus Fluorescein Angiography (FFA), Fundus Photography, GDX, A&B scans, Visual field assessment, Pachymetry Binocular Single Vision test, computerised eye tests for spectacles as well as laser treatment and phacoemulsification surgery for cataracts are done routinely at the hospital. It also offers vitreoretinal surgery for problems such as retinal detachment, diabetic eye diseases and intraocular infection.

The Golden Key Eye and ENT Hospital is managed with the assistance of an Advisory Committee comprising of University of Colombo Faculty of Medicine Senior Professor Rohan W. Jayasekera (Chairman), Senior Consultant Eye Surgeon Dr. Saliya Pathirana, Consultant Eye Surgeon Dr. Saumya Paranawithana, Consultant Eye Surgeon Dr. Dilruwani Aryasingha and Chief Operating Officer Niranjan Silva.