My Experience with Writing a Book on Hypospadias.
DR. VVS. Chandrasekharam, author of the book on Hypospadias, has dealt with 1200 cases of hypospadias over 20 years.
Hypospadias is a common congenital (birth) defect of the genitalia in boys, occurring in about 1 out of 150 boys. Hypospadias is a very versatile defect, and the type of defect varies from child to child. The treatment consists of surgery to correct the hypospadias and give the child a normal structure and function. There are more than 300 techniques of hypospadias surgery described, which makes the treatment very complex. Hypospadias has to be operated only by experts, otherwise, there can be complications requiring further complicated surgery later.
There are very few books dedicated to hypospadias surgery in the English language, and no book from Asia. Many parents of my hypospadias patients encouraged me to do something to teach young surgeons about hypospadias surgery. This led me into writing this book ‘Hypospadias Surgery: Science & Art’, which is the first book of its kind in Asia. It is a monogram, detailing my journey with hypospadias over 20 years, with over 1200 cases of hypospadias. It describes what I learnt about hypospadias as a student of surgery, as a qualified young surgeon, and as I continued to gain expertise in hypospadias surgery. In the book, I presented many techniques to assess, understand and correct various types of hypospadias, both primary (first-time surgery) and re-operative (after previous failed surgery/surgeries) cases. Most of these techniques I have learnt, modified, and perfected over the years, and they gave me consistent results.
The book was published by international ‘Thieme’ publishers. The book was released in October 2019 at AIIMS, New Delhi, the alma matter where I was trained and passed my MCh with a gold medal in 1999 which made it a matter of intense nostalgia and pride for me. The book was released during our national conference, which was another highlight. Since then, the book has received excellent reviews from both seniors and young surgeons who have read it. I hope the book will help surgeons understand and perform better hypospadias surgery to help the unfortunate children born with hypospadias.
These days I see a lot of adolescents and young adults who come to me with severe and serious complications from previous failed hypospadias operations done elsewhere. Our results with such complicated cases have also been good, by God’s grace. I will be ever indebted to my patients and their parents who trusted in me. When talking about an operation like hypospadias, there is always a room for improvement in the results. I will continue to strive for even better results in future.