Patna: Dr Manish Mandal, Professor and Head of Gastro Surgery and Medical Superintendent at IGIMS Patna, has become the first Indian to receive a prestigious award from the International College of Surgeons in Charleston, USA. The recognition came after he delivered the Dr Enrico Nicolo Memorial Lecture on “Managing Gall Bladder Cancer in a Rural Healthcare Setup”.
His address spotlighted the complexities of treating gall bladder cancer in resource-constrained regions, drawing from real-world experiences at IGIMS, one of Bihar’s largest tertiary care centres. Dr Mandal highlighted the mismatch between patient load and healthcare infrastructure in India, especially in Bihar—a state of 127 million with just around 1,900 hospitals and 20 medical schools.
“India has a population of 1.46 billion, and the healthcare burden is immense,” he said, noting that the IGIMS OPD handles over 7,000 patients daily, with 2,000 of them in surgical specialties. The hospital performs nearly 100 surgeries each day, reflecting the acute pressure on its surgical departments.
The presentation explored challenges such as late-stage presentation of gall bladder cancer, limited early detection facilities, and delays in diagnosis due to poor awareness in rural populations. Dr Mandal emphasised the need for decentralised screening, better referral systems, and capacity-building in district hospitals to address these gaps.
His lecture was lauded for bridging clinical excellence with public health insight, presenting a scalable model for low-resource settings.
