RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Found­ing Mem­ber of the So­ci­ety of Sur­geons of T&T, Dr Lall Sawh has been made a mem­ber of the Urol­o­gy Sur­gi­cal Spe­cial­i­ty Board of the Roy­al Col­lege of Sur­geons of Ed­in­burgh and he wants to use his new post to bring spe­cialised train­ing to his fel­low doc­tors.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Dr Sawh called for a na­tion­al re­assess­ment of med­ical train­ing, start­ing with the re­train­ing of doc­tors and stricter re­quire­ments for med­ical spe­cial­i­sa­tion.

He said new spe­cial­ists must gain prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence and men­tor­ship be­fore be­ing al­lowed to lead de­part­ments and he said he wel­comed the open­ing of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Glob­al School of Med­i­cine.

Speak­ing about his own spe­cial­i­ty, Dr Sawh said he hoped to col­lab­o­rate with in­ter­na­tion­al spe­cial­ists who can help lo­cal doc­tors.

Re­call­ing his own ex­pe­ri­ence, Dr Sawh not­ed that af­ter com­plet­ing train­ing abroad, he still re­turned every year for fur­ther in­struc­tion be­fore feel­ing ready to lead.

“Even when I came back, I didn’t feel I was able enough to go and hold a whole unit,” he added.

Dr Sawh crit­i­cised what he called a pre­ma­ture pro­mo­tion of new grad­u­ates.

“They get their diplo­mas and the next day they’re putting up a sign as a spe­cial­ist. That is a lit­tle pre­ma­ture for me,” he said.

He is al­so call­ing on the health sec­tor to im­prove its use of med­ical tech­nol­o­gy while em­pha­sis­ing the need for strate­gic in­vest­ment.

“Tech­nol­o­gy is ex­pen­sive… you have to be very cir­cum­spect and care­ful how you choose the tech­nol­o­gy,” he ex­plained.

Dr Sawh took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a strong call to men across the coun­try to take their health se­ri­ous­ly by get­ting test­ed ear­ly for prostate can­cer.

“Prostate can­cer is pre­ventable,” he said, urg­ing men to over­come the stig­ma and “ma­cho” re­sis­tance to test­ing.

“The trou­ble is, our men don’t feel like it could hap­pen to them. They’re too ma­cho, they don’t want the fin­ger ex­am.”

He em­pha­sised that new tech­nolo­gies are avail­able that can de­tect and treat the dis­ease be­fore it spreads but many men avoid screen­ings un­til it’s too late.

“We have tech­nol­o­gy here to cure it be­fore it goes to the bone. Once it goes to the bone, you’re not go­ing to cure it.”

Dr Sawh point­ed out the irony in cas­es where even those with ac­cess to the best med­ical care are di­ag­nosed late.

He said women reg­u­lar­ly seek pre­ven­ta­tive care, such as pap smears and breast ex­ams, while men of­ten avoid tests out of dis­com­fort or de­nial. He called for a cul­tur­al shift in how men ap­proach health, and a sys­temic change in how spe­cial­ists are trained, se­lect­ed, and re­tained.

He al­so stressed the need for gov­ern­ment in­volve­ment in med­ical train­ing pro­grammes and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships to en­sure that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of med­ical pro­fes­sion­als re­turn to serve the coun­try.