Doctor Sharadkumar Dixit
Picture credit: Kindly allowed by Som
There have been few stories or postings or persons, that I have written about in my life, that brought me to tears as I wrote them, this one did!
As some/many of you may already know, my son is a paraplegic, so the life and struggles of this brave, stubborn, willful man, struck close to my heart.
One thing that they both have/had in common is/was that they refused to let life in a wheelchair hold them back, or limit the fullest potential of their lives.
They both did precisely what they were driven to do.
What this Plastic Surgeon, this Doctor to the most poor of India and even the world, chose to do with his life after a horrific car accident left him paralyzed, a heart that was less than 20% functional, barely surviving cancer of the larynx, that left him unable to speak and the continuing threat of an imminent cerebral hemorrhage, in my humble opinion, suggests nothing less than the mark of a Saint.
Doctor Sharadkumar Dixit, or Dicksheet, was nominated eight times for the Nobel Peace Prize, but never won.
However, along his lifelong Humanitarian Journey, he did collect a massive, most impressive list of other awards and accolades for his unselfish devotion to those with nothing to offer him, but their deepest gratitude.
The Doctor returned to India every year for six months, to hold free plastic surgery camps, for those with cleft lips, or cleft palates in dire need of repairing, to throngs of hopeful waiting crowds that would impress even a Rock Star.
In over forty years, this amazing Doctor performed more than 300,000 surgeries from the confines of his wheelchair and was called, ” the fastest plastic surgeon in the world.”
He lived quite meagerly in a tiny Brooklyn apartment and survived mostly on social security.
Doctor Dixit was born Dec 13, 1930 in Chandarpur, Maharashra, India and died in Flushing, New York, November 14, 2011.
As to be expected, this diligent, devoted Man of Medicine, was considered a God in India, to those whose lives he changed forever.
He gave them back their smiles.
As you can see, this remarkable man’s life knew NO LIMITS!
Places to learn more:
Magical Fingers at work for the disabled
Farewell to a hero – Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet
Doctor who was Saint of Smiles
Plastic surgeon, Nobel Prize nominee Sharadkumar Dicksheet, MD, dies at 80
