India’s leading ophthalmologist Dr Tatyarao Lahane, who has set a world record with 1.62 lakh-plus cataract surgeries, has retired from government service.
Dr Lahane retired on Wednesday as Director of the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) of Maharashtra after being in government service for 36 years.
In the past, he had also served as the Dean of Grant Medical College and Sir JJ Group of Hospitals.
Dr TP Lahane holds the world record of conducting 1.62-lakh cataract surgeries.
In 2007, he completed the one-lakh mark of cataract surgeries and in 2008 was awarded the Padma Shri.
“I will continue to serve the people…I am not stopping as far as work is concerned,” Dr Lahane told DH on Thursday which coincides with National Doctors’ Day.
He said that he would work with the ophthalmology department of the Sir JJ Hospital at Byculla.
Dr Lahane was born in a small village named Makegaon in Renapur in Latur district of Maharashtra in a farmer's family on February 12, 1957, to Pundlikrao and Anjanabai.
Dr Lahane started his career at the Ambejogai Hospital. At a young age, both of his kidneys failed and his mother donated one of her kidneys to him. He underwent a kidney transplant surgery on February 22, 1995, in Mumbai.
It is Dr Lahane who gave India the advanced phacoemulsification technology.
He has also reached all remote places — by way of thousands of camps — within Maharashtra through surgical camps to treat patients who are unable to travel to the hospital for their ailment.
Despite the kidney transplant and being on medicines, Dr Lahane works for over 14 hours daily.
During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, he played a key role as a part of the core team that is advising Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
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