Dr Omkar Hota, a young Odisha peripheral doctor whose stunning act of selfless service has turned him into an icon, on Wednesday told medical students that while getting trained to be good doctors they must be good human beings first.
“People suffering from diseases pin their hopes on doctors for deliverance, but if we cannot live up to their expectation, we fail,” Dr Hota said while replying to felicitations accorded to him by the SOA University here.
Prof Dhirendra Kumar Ray, Medical Director and Prof Gangadhar Sahu, Dean of the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital, the faculty of medicine of SOA University, felicitated the young doctor.
Dr Hota, now posted at Papulur Public Health Centre in Malkangiri district, hit the headlines when he visited a remote village to conduct a delivery and found it to be a complicated case. The woman was profusely bleeding after delivering a baby and required to be shifted to the PHC, a distance of 12 km of inhospitable terrain with no transport available.
“None of the inhabitants of the village agreed to help me shift the critical patient to the PHC. They refused to come with me though I
pleaded them with folded hands and even offered money for the help,” he recounted.
With the assistance of the woman’s husband and a couple of others, Dr Hota himself carried the woman on a cot and walked the 12 km to the PHC where her life could be saved.
Urging the students, who gave him a standing ovation, not to have the goal of earning lots of money, he said, “Never forget that ours is a profession of sacrifice.”
Dr Hota said he had decided to serve in peripheral areas though such postings were generally shunned as difficult assignments. “I used to work overtime in the hospital because I wanted to learn more. I know I will be all alone and have no help or advice when working in a remote place,” he said.
The doctor, who was felicitated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here earlier, said he hoped to go for higher studies in future. Dr Pushparaj Samantasinhar, Medical Superintendent of IMS and SUM Hospital, described Dr Hota as a ‘superstar’.