Dinner at Dr. Mohan Raj Sharma's home with family and neurosurgeons

We were all invited to Mohan's house for a wonderful dinner and get together.   Mohan and his family spent three great years in Seattle while he worked under Dr. Dick Winn and Dr. Rich Ellenbogen 2000-2003.  We had a great time talking about all of the neurosurgeons at the University of Washington and Seattle area.  At the dinner, it was quite fun to talk with two of the three residents in the department.  One couldn't make it.  Maya is half-Japanese, half-Nepali and is senior resident.  Amit is first year resident, and Ali from the Maldives who couldn't make it is second year.  Ali will go back to the Maldives and set up the first neurosurgery service in that country.  

The three consultant/professors at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital are Sushil (chairman), Mohan, and Gopal.  All three are really great with whom to spend social time, as well as clinical time.  We had long discussions about their private practices versus their T.U. positions.  The financial issues are so different from the U.S. and Europe.  Thomas Steffen and I are constantly analyzing the differences.  One thing we both agreed on is that the clinics that the neurosurgeons run at T.U. are amazingly efficient.  They see 30-40 patients who are unscreened with about a 10% surgical yield.  The patients all bring in their own medical records, CT and MRI scans.  This is very efficient: no calling around for films, records, reports, etc. Thomas Steffen will do a guest blog on this site tomorrow and explain the clinic in more detail.  

Ward rounds continue to be enlightening, particularly with the huge number of brain tumors.