Meet the 79-Year-Old Surgeon Who Never Took a Day Off in His Over 2 Decades of Career

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For over two decades, Dr. Tsering Norbu has performed more than 10,000 major and minor surgeries. However, despite retiring as a surgeon in 2001 and continuing to serve patients tirelessly in a charitable hospital for five years, he still helps his community residents, to this day of which some elderly patients only trust his advice.

Born to parents who were farmers, Dr. Norbu, of Ladakh in the region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, served as a medical officer for 10 years after completing his MBBS. He subsequently became a surgeon at the Sonam Norboo Memorial Hospital in Leh upon finishing his Master’s degree in General Surgery in 1978.

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In his career as a surgeon, he has seen how the hospital evolved from having only 20 beds and limited staff support to becoming one with 150 beds and its own electricity generators, according to Reach Ladakh Bulletin in 2016.

The 79-year-old told The Better India that in the early days, he “didn’t even have an anesthetist for years” and “had to double up as one and perform surgeries as well.”

Alluding to the challenges he faced, which included no heating facilities in the operation theater, the selfless surgeon shared that with frequent electricity outages, there were also instances when he had to operate on patients with the use of torchlight. However, despite the difficulties, he managed to complete all but one surgery successfully in his entire career.

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“Dr. Norbu is such an experienced hand,” said former Indian diplomat Sonam Wangchuk, who is also his friend. “There are so many incredible stories of how he conducted an operation under impossible circumstances.”

Dr. Tsering Landol, the first gynecologist in the region, can attest to Wangchuk’s description of Dr. Norbu. She recounted that in one specific surgery conducted in the late 1980s, Dr. Norbu, who helped her to induce anesthesia, stepped in to aid after the patient was bleeding profusely.

“Dr. Norbu literally walked me through the procedure with incredible calmness to stop the bleeding and ensure the successful completion of the operation,” she said.

In addition, Landol, who was in praise of Dr. Norbu, stated that he “is among the best the region has produced.”

In fact, throughout his career, Dr. Norbu has completed over 10,000 operations. He told Reach Ladakh Bulletin that he was assigned to operate twice a week with three major surgeries a day and several other minor ones.

“It comes to around 40–45 surgeries a month and nearly 500 cases in a year. This does not include many emergency surgeries we had to carry out in case of accidents, other trauma and general surgical emergencies,” he said.

Being the first practicing surgeon in the region of Ladakh, Dr. Norbu has performed almost all kinds of surgeries, including abdominal, orthopedic, gynecological, and obstetrics.

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During his career, the dedicated doctor has tirelessly served his community to the point that there has never been a day that he’s missed work. In addition, there were many years where Dr. Norbu didn’t get to spend time with his family during the Ladakhi new year.

According to Wangchuk, Dr. Norbu, who has inspired many doctors during his years of service, has treated at least one person from each household in the region of Ladakh and neighboring villages surrounding it.

After his retirement in 2001 at the Sonam Norboo Memorial Hospital, Dr. Norbu went on to serve as a surgeon for five years at the Mahabodhi Karuna Charitable Hospital, which offers free treatments. However, even after his stint ended in 2006, Dr. Norbu didn’t remain idle.

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As a recipient of the Rural Surgeon award presented by the Indian government, Dr. Norbu is still seeing patients and conducting health checks at least six mornings every week as some of his elderly patients requested for his service only.