Dr. Craig Juergens, a senior cardiologist practicing in Sydney, stopped by in Mumbai for an unusual cause: learning the use of bio-absorbable stent in patients with complex heart disease. Two fellow Australians Dr. Robert Lew from Victoria and Dr. Peter Larsen stopped in Mumbai to observe city cardiologist Dr. A V Ganesh Kumar perform seven complex angioplasties that need over 20 bio-absorbable stents. This episode has a simple reason: the new stent has been in use in India for three years now but Dr.
Lew got a license for its use in Australia less than a year back. "Only Germany has used more bio-absorbable stents than Indian cardiologists, around 20,000 to our 13,000. Clearly, Indian doctors are over the learning curve," said Dr. Kumar. "If any of the patients operated in these two days had come to us in Australia, we would have sent them for a bypass surgery. We had not considered…
