Passage to India: Physicians give back to their homeland

Doctors build a medical school and a hospital in an underserved area of their native country.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. May 10, 2004.

Sudarasana Rao Akkineni, MD, and Mani Akkineni, MD, aren't as quick to buy a new car as they used to be. Major purchases require careful consideration. And they could end up postponing retirement as they use some of the money they could have saved to build a medical school and hospital in India.

To date, the physicians, who are husband and wife, have given $500,000 to fund a new medical campus in southeast India.

Two dozen of their friends and colleagues, almost all from the same region of Andhra Pradesh in southeast India, are also helping fund the new hospital. It's the brainchild of five friends who came together to fulfill their dream of bringing quality, affordable health care to the people who live in the place where they grew up.

Prasad Neerukonda, MD, an anesthesiologist in Chicago, said the group wanted to give back after succeeding in the United States.

"There are medical services for the people who have money, but for the poor it is tough," Dr. Neerukonda said of the people from his home region.

The physicians want the hospital to fill the void between government hospitals that treat the indigent but don't have the funding to offer high-tech medicine and the private hospitals that offer many advanced medical procedures but aren't charged with the mission of treating the poor. Their hospital, they dreamt, would provide more than just the basics.

They wanted a world-class facility with CT scans and MRIs. They also decided to build a medical school and offer training for nurses, midwives, medical technicians and other health care professionals, most of which are in short supply in the region. They also hope area physicians will take advantage of the medical center's seminars to keep up with the latest in treatments and diagnosis.