Dr. S. Raja Sabapathy

Biography

Dr S Raja Sabapathy is presently the Chairman of the Division of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, Reconstructive Microsurgery, Faciomaxillary and Burns and Director of Ganga Hospital, Coimbatore.

He had a brilliant academic career and was adjudged as the Best Outgoing Student of Stanley Medical College during his MBBS. He later completed M.S General Surgery at Madras Medical College and M Ch at Stanley Medical College. He later did his higher training in Hand and Microsurgery at UK and USA.

He is known for introducing Microsurgery in Coimbatore and was one of the earliest to successfully establish a Microsurgical Centre in private practice based on “High volume, high quality and affordable cost model”. Presently the Plastic Surgery Department in Ganga Hospital is the largest Plastic Surgery Department in India and has done 10,137 operations in 2014.

Dr. S. Raja Sabapathy, Chairman of the department graduated from Stanley Medical College, Madras as the Best Outgoing Student, standing first in the University in Medicine and Surgery. He counts himself fortunate in having many great men like Prof R.Sarat Chandra, Dr V R Ravi Kumar Prof R, Venkataswami, Mr Bruce Bailey and Dr Harold Kleinert as his teachers and role models during his training period. He values that each of them in their own way, in addition to teaching surgical techniques taught him the skills in setting up a department and leading a dynamic team. This helped him to introduce reconstructive microsurgery to the region in 1991 and build up a world renowned institution.

His core interests and strengths have been in the field of Hand Surgery and Reconstructive Microsurgery and built up a very busy hand injury and replantation service. He again was instrumental in starting the work in the fields of Brachial Plexus, Surgery in Paralytic disorders and wrist surgery in the region. The work done resulted in the invitation to deliver the Douglas Lamb Lecture at the British Society for Surgery of the Hand and visiting professorships to Mayo Clinic, Yale, Washington university at St Louis, Ann Arbor, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh. He has delivered orations, international and national presentations. He has authored publications , book chapters and feels privileged to have been associated with Prof Robert Acland in bringing out the 'Practice Manual for Microvascular Surgery'. Presently he is leading a team in the setting up of a Diabetic Foot care unit and a centre for Burns.

Awards And Honours

He is happy to take responsibility in administration and has been the President of the Association of Plastic Surgeons of India (APSI) , Indian Society for Surgery of the Hand (ISSH), Indian Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery (ISRM), Brachial Plexus Surgery Group of India, and International Trauma care (Indian Chapter). He is also on the council of the National Association of Burns of India (NABI). He was the Chairman of the 12th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand and 9th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies of Hand Therapy (IFSSH – IFSHT) held at New Delhi in March 2013 and will be the Chairman of the 8th Congress of the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery to be held in Mumbai in March 2015.