Almost six years ago, he opted to set up a lasik laser clinic, MaxiVision (short for Maximum Vision), at Hyderabad, despite a fruitful professional career in the UK. He is first and foremost his own guinea pig, having undergone all the lasik techniques on himself. Also, this is one man who has no compunctions in training other doctors, does not charge for it, and does not mind if they go ahead and set up their own clinics thereafter... so long as they practise medicine with ethics. Excerpts from an interview:

How can lasik laser surgery help?
I am an ophthalmologist, with super speciality in lasers. I was in the UK for 20 years. The procedures I carry out here enable young boys and girls to get rid of lenses and glasses permanently, especially those going in for marriage. But this is not only on a cosmetic basis-it's also for those wanting to join professional services like the Defence, Railways, IPS, etc., where, if you have eye power, they don't accept you. I thought the laser was a brilliant solution for this, and so I went to Chicago where I did half of my training, and then went to Mannheim in Germany to learn the rest. In fact, I was the first doctor to introduce the lasik in the UK, in 1993.

After that, I came here.

But hasn't eye laser surgery proved to have a mixed success rate?
All procedures in medicine have complications and side-effects. I agree there was a problem with laser technology earlier. But this goes so beautifully, I cannot recall even an infection, and nobody has lost an eye in my hands. I have done 5,500 cases in Hyderabad so far, and 3,500 in the UK. I have a purely out-patient approach because I firmly believe patients are happier among their own surroundings. So it's like a shop-9 to 5! They come back to me the next day, and then again two months later for a check-up. The most important part of medicine is counselling, and doctors tend to neglect that. And, while all professions have to be responsible, I agree that doctors have to be more ethical because they're dealing with human beings.

Is the procedure relatively painless?
Not relatively-it's absolutely painless. But sometimes, let's say out of a 100 people, you could get a young girl or boy who's nervous, in which case I give IV anaesthesia. Although I have to say boys need more calming down. I find girls better at this, maybe because they're constantly touching the eye area to apply make-up and so on.

How expensive is lasik surgery?
In the UK, it costs 3,000 for both eyes, whereas here, it's Rs 30,000 for both. And the majority of this Rs 30,000 goes for the machine. Each machine costs Rs 1.5 crore, and the maintenance cost alone-per year-is Rs 22 lakh.

How many surgeries do you perform yourself?
Only I do the actual surgeries-the other doctors only do the preliminaries.

No, it's not that I don't trust them-it's the patients who don't!

What's next on the anvil for you?
Well, I'm going to the US in October, to check out some new techniques, whereby you can operate on age related problems like reading and distance vision. It's been practised in the US for the last one and half years, with a mixed success rate. First, I'll get it done on myself-I've always done that, even with the lasik. How can I ask my patients to undergo something I don't believe in myself?