In his new book,
Second Suns (Random House), author David Oliver Relin traces the extraordinary journey of
Sanduk Ruit (pic, right), the eye doctor from the remote mountains of Olangchungola village in Taplejung district, who pioneered modern cataract surgery in the country and made high quality, affordable eye care accessible to ordinary citizens. Across the 432 pages, readers also learn about American ophthalmologist Geoff Tabin (pic, right) who works alongside Ruit in eradicating preventable blindness and giving thousands of patients from the poorest communities in Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia and even North Korea the gift of sight.
The man who grew up to establish Nepal’s leading eye care hospital - Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology - had humble beginnings. The nearest school was a week’s walk away from Ruit’s village. But through hard work and perseverance he won a prestigious scholarship to study medicine at the King George Medical College in Lucknow, India. After specialising in ophthalmology, he worked under Australian doctor Fred Hollows in ground-breaking cataract surgery. This modern technique, which Ruit helped perfect, involves a deft incision in the cornea, removal of clouded lens, and implantation of intraocular lens into the natural capsule. The surgery is inexpensive with locally made lenses costing around $4 a piece and recovery is prompt.
Geoff Tabin is an equally accomplished doctor with a strong sense of altruism. A Harvard graduate, a serious tennis player who captained the Yale tennis team when he went to college there, Tabin has summited Everest and many other peaks and is a well-known climber. Despite these accomplishments he shows deep humility when he tells the Dalai Lama that in the field of cataract surgery, “Everything I have achieved, I have achieved with the partnership of Ruit.”
Although Second Suns does not provide new information on the doctors, it gives us a fascinating insight into how the innovative duo have come together to achieve their common dreams despite contrasting personalities. Ruit is the grumpier and reserved of the two, while Tabin has the hyperactivity of an adolescent. The writer also depicts Ruit’s adeptness in performing cataract operations particularly well. In villages where hundreds of patients are waiting for surgery, speed is of essence.
An important study (referenced in the book) in the American Journal of Ophthalmology clearly demonstrated that one of the world’s best and fastest eye surgeon, David Chang from the US, took nearly twice as long to operate on each patient as Ruit did. The study also revealed that 91 per cent of Ruit’s cataract patients regained normal vision after a day of surgery compared to Chang’s 78 percent. This is an essential difference for people who have to walk back home for hours over difficult terrain soon after the operation. At six months, 98 per cent of both Chang and Ruit’s patients had excellent eyesight. In terms of quality, the surgeries Ruit performs in monasteries, schools, and police posts are comparable to those carried out in well-equipped, state-of the-art hospitals in the US.
There is however a pervading sense of melancholy throughout Second Suns. David Relin, who also co-authored the best-seller Three Cups of Tea with Greg Mortenson committed suicide in 2012 after it was revealed that Mortenson had either fabricated or excessively embellished many events in the book. Contrary to Three Cups, this heart-warming tale about Ruit and Tabin stays true to these miracle men’s lives and mission.
Read also:
Two decades of vision
The gift of sight
The vision thing
An eye for an eye
Nepal's visionary eyecare