The AUA lost a great friend, urologist, and international humanitarian in the passing of Dr. Sakti Das. Dr. Das’ career and his central philosophical viewpoint of life was in giving and, as he wrote on his blog visited by thousands of followers per year, “I serve, therefore, I am.” He himself credited his mother with the initiative to help others, growing up in Khulna, East Bengal, not far from some of the poorest areas of the world. His first service was with Mother Theresa and the Missionaries of Charity in the slums of Calcutta. He graduated from medical school in that city in 1962 and Delhi in 1966, before continuing training at the Royal College of Surgery in the UK, and ultimately, his US residency at UCLA under Willard Goodwin and Joseph Kaufman. Dr. Das then served the California community for over 20 years through Kaiser Permanente, later joining UC Davis as full professor until his retirement in 2002. However, his work and his true passion in life never really stopped, and he completed 40 years of medical missionary work in 12 countries and three continents. He volunteered yearly in his native India, and, when he could, in Kenya, Jordan, Syria with the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), and Haiti which he referred to as mon amour, repairing schoolhouses after storms and landslides. His only lament was that he had to “wait for disasters and mayhem to happen to rush (me) back…Haiti envelops me,” he reflected, “embraces me, engulfs me in her unconditional love. And so little I can give back in return.” (1)
He volunteered monthly with Liga International in the west coast Mexican village of San Blas, and it was only his open heart surgery in 2014 that made him take a year off from that pilgrimage. A skilled and resourceful surgeon, Dr. Das’ judgment and operative care benefited thousands across the globe. He recalled once seeing an elderly gentleman in San Blas with an “avocado sized bladder stone” and managed to perform a cystotomy and stone extraction under local anesthesia. (2)
Childhood education and health care, and access to them, especially for girls, was particularly important to Dr. Das. He supported 56 schools in six countries, representing some 4,000 students, and 14 orphanages where he was proud to say that those children “blossomed” in their education and health. A gentle soul, Dr. Das was not afraid to fight, however, for those who had no voice. In rural Afghanistan, he found himself “boiling with rage” about the lack of women’s rights. “Gentlemen,” as he once addressed his Afghani hosts, “you talk about women’s emancipation, education and empowerment, but it is sheer hypocrisy that you don’t consider giving them the decency of an in-house toilet.” (3) The toilet was subsequently built.
Dr. Das saw the history of urology as critical to ensuring that future urologists benefit from the long lineage of advancements and insights obtained from the efforts of their predecessors. He served as historian of the AUA and the creative force behind the 2012 AUA History Exhibit, "Skeletons in the Closet: Indignities & Injustices in Medicine.”(4)
Among all, Dr. Das gave great thanks and appreciation to his wife for his many efforts in any country and whether “operating in Gaza surrounded by drone bombing,...or talking to leaders…to start a school for girls, she was always there…with her silent prayers,” courage and support. (5)
Dr. Das received the Albert Schweitzer International Teaching Award from the International Society of Urology in 2012. The Urology Care Foundation (UCF) has long recognized Dr. Das' monumental dedication to the world’s impoverished and awarded him the UCF’s Global Humanitarian Award in 2022. UCF President Harris Nagler remarked that Dr. Das “represents what we should do. He shows us what we can do, and he really drives us to a higher level in terms of the expectations of ourselves.” (6)
Dr. Das was a polymath and an accomplished artist, photographer and cinematographer, using his skills to create innovative and educational films in the urologic operating room. He loved poetry and in 2016 invoked the words of Tennyson:
“...All experience is an arch wherethru’ gleams that untraveled world, whose margins fade for ever and ever when I move. One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will...To strike, to seek, to find and not to yield.” (7)
Dr. Das, we salute you.
REFERENCES
- Das S.(October 28th, 2024) Sakti Das. I serve therefore I am. Words. Thoughts. Musings. Action.https://saktidas.com
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Didusch Museum, Linthicum, Maryland (October 18th, 2024), Annual Meeting. https://urologichistory.museum/annual-meeting
- Urology Care Foundation, 2022. “Interview with Sakti Das, MD and Harris Nagler, MD”. https://youtu.be/UUVNIyQ_CbE.
- Ibid.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson. “Ulysses”. EE Simpson, Blackwood Press, 1979.