- 4 months ago
At the India Today South Conclave 2025, Dr H Sudarshan Ballal emphasised that even as robotics, precision medicine, and remote monitoring revolutionise healthcare, compassion must remain at its core.
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00:00Thank you very much. At the outset, I would like to congratulate India today for holding this wonderful conclave,
00:08which is extremely, extremely popular. I would also like to thank them for inviting me to be here.
00:15Without further ado, we go on to the topic for today, which is Healing 2.0, where innovation meets care.
00:26Actually, I thought no care is complete without compassion.
00:30So I took the liberty of adding compassionate care instead of care alone.
00:38As I stand here, I reflect on my own journey.
00:43I've been a doctor now for 50 years, and in the good olden days when I was a young physician,
00:50nephrologist and intensivist, I had to sit by the bedside of critically ill patients
00:54to now, with my new role, I guide thousands of young doctors in their journey
01:01as chairman of one of the largest health care networks in India.
01:06Over five decades, I have witnessed health care evolve very dramatically
01:13from weeks of stay in a hospital bed with a foot-long incision for an open gallbladder surgery
01:19with a dozen relatives in attendance to now an outpatient daycare
01:25or short, persistent procedures with tiny incisions using a robot or a laparoscope.
01:32And unfortunately, being a nuclear family, you are left on your own in the hospital bed.
01:39And this is actually, I'm quoting from my own experience about my grandmother.
01:43She was 70, almost maybe 50 years ago, when she had to have gallbladder surgery,
01:51and her son was the district medical officer, so he got some extra privileges in the government hospital,
01:57got a suite, a private suite, and there were a dozen relatives in the room
02:02and many, many medical attenders too.
02:05But this is what she was left with.
02:07She came out happy, obviously, after three weeks of stay in the hospital,
02:12and she had this massive scar, which in the current day would be either like this,
02:20two or three small keyholes or no holes that are visible at all.
02:26And this is again a representation of how it used to be in the olden days,
02:31elderly person getting operated,
02:32and there would be multiple relatives by the bedside to comfort the patient.
02:38However, what you see now is one patient alone in the room,
02:42and the only company they keep is the multiple monitors and the humming of the machines around them.
02:47Unfortunately, that is the truth these days.
02:52But through all this change, we should not forget the one truth that has remained constant.
02:59Patients do not come to us only for treatment.
03:02But with the hope that you will also heal them.
03:05An important message for all of us in health care is that amidst the mind-boggling advance in technology
03:13and use of AI in medicine, we should ensure that medicine does not lose its human touch,
03:22and empathy is as important as expertise in healing.
03:27With this in mind, I want to talk about what I call Healing 2.0,
03:34an era where innovation meets care, science meets compassion, and technology amplifies humanity.
03:44At its core, healing is not just about curing disease.
03:48It is about restoring dignity.
03:49It is about easing fear, and it is about giving hope.
03:55And this, believe me, ladies and gentlemen, only a humane doctor can.
03:59None of the modern robots or any of the scientific advances that we have can replace this.
04:04I, being a nephrologist, dialysis is very close to my heart,
04:10so I've given you a representation of a dialysis machine here, one of the modern machines.
04:16And Healing 2.0 demands that innovations always meet human touch.
04:22This machine is worthless unless you have a caregiver who is compassionate.
04:26A dialysis patient may not remember the model of the dialysis machine,
04:33but they will certainly never forget the doctor or the nurse
04:36who reassured them during the long hours of treatment.
04:41If we innovate, which is necessary, but if we do it without compassion...
04:56People in my age group have been truly blessed to see the huge progress in the field of healthcare
05:08and others as far as science is concerned.
05:11We have artificial intelligence.
05:13We have robots.
05:14We have robotic personal assistants.
05:17All this is a reality, and believe me, this is happening as I speak.
05:20And some of the innovations that come to my mind offhand is telemedicine,
05:28remote monitoring wearable devices, robotics and precision medicine,
05:34artificial intelligence, genomics and personalized care,
05:38xenotransplantation, stem cells, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine,
05:43drone technology.
05:45I would like to say a couple of words about telemedicine.
05:47I have been practicing for decades now,
05:50and we have been talking about telemedicine for decades,
05:53ever since maybe I had finished my post-graduation.
05:56However, it got mired in the quagmire of legal and regulatory issues
06:03that it never became a true reality, and bang came COVID.
06:08And believe it or not, in one week, telemedicine became a reality.
06:12So I must thank COVID for that one part at least, if not anything else.
06:17Robotics, as you are all aware, is precision medicine where once upon a time,
06:25major surgery made large scars, blood loss and prolonged recovery.
06:28Today, robotic systems allow surgeons to operate through tiny incisions
06:32with unmatched precision and even remotely.
06:35We have been fortunate at Bandipal to have had a robot for over 14 years
06:39and it is predominantly used for cancer and urology service.
06:43Of course, yesterday, I heard a very young boy,
06:46Aju, I think, was interviewed here,
06:49and he had a lot of things to say about artificial intelligence.
06:53I think I'll cut a very sorry figure if I try to talk about artificial intelligence
06:57after what he said yesterday.
06:59This is one more area that Bandipal is involved in.
07:02We have a company called Stemputix and we do a lot of basic research
07:06and now have commercialized stem cells.
07:09Stem cells are pluripotent cells that have an unlimited life.
07:14They never die.
07:15And interestingly, they can be trained to become any cell in the body.
07:19They can become a kidney, liver, heart, brain, whatever.
07:21So the art of stem cell therapy is to convert the stem cells
07:26in what you want it to be and regenerate organs.
07:29So combined with gene therapy, biologic device combination products,
07:34we have the whole field of regenerative medicine,
07:37which I believe in the next few years, maybe at least within the next decade,
07:43will replace organ transplantation in many fields.
07:46And of course, when we were young, we had a cancer,
07:52let's say a cancer of the breast, colon, or lung,
07:56and the treatment was the same irrespective of who you were,
08:00whether it was lung cancer, breast cancer, or colon cancer.
08:03However, now we know the genetic signature of these cancers
08:07are different from the same kind of cancer.
08:10And that is why many treatments for a particular type of cancer
08:14fail in some people, have great results in others.
08:18So that is why now we know that one size fits all was the wrong theory,
08:24and we have to tailor the therapy just for you.
08:28Very exciting field.
08:30All of you could probably go back and start a pig farm,
08:33because soon organ transplantation may be replaced by xenotransplantation.
08:39Xenotransplantation is the process of transplanting organ from one species to another.
08:45As we speak, a trial has been announced in xenotransplantation,
08:50and we had some very exciting news in the last one year
08:53where genetically modified pigs, pigs where the genes were modified
08:58so that they don't elicit an immune response, were transplanted to human beings.
09:03And as of today, I think one of the recipients has had this pig kidney
09:07for more than six to nine months.
09:10So there are many more things that are happening.
09:13So also regenerative medicine, about which I talked about,
09:17will be another field that will replace many treatments we give,
09:21like it may replace joints, treat joints, treat peripheral vascular disease,
09:28so on and so forth.
09:29One of the things that has fascinated me is what everyone has.
09:38I think everyone in this audience has this, a smartphone, and an iWatch.
09:46I think these have been probably the greatest discoveries,
09:49probably not meant to be health caregivers in the past,
09:53but have taken that role.
09:55Now with these iWatch or any kind of a smartwatch and smartphone,
10:03health rings, and glucose monitoring devices,
10:06you can monitor almost all the vital signs remotely,
10:12and it can be transmitted real time to your caregivers,
10:15as is seen in this picture.
10:17I do not know how many in this audience would be diabetic,
10:20but diabetes is a huge problem,
10:22and in the good olden days you had to either your blood drawn to get the blood sugar check
10:26or be pricked, which is quite painful at your fingertips, to get your sugar.
10:31Now you have a patch attached to your arm,
10:34and that will measure your sugars around the clock.
10:36All these have made great differences in how we monitor the health care of a given individual,
10:42be it heart, blood pressure, diabetes,
10:44and, of course, the pulse oximeters during the COVID time.
10:49And this is a true story.
10:51Of course, the picture is representative.
10:53When COVID struck, all travel came to a knot.
10:56People could not move from their houses,
10:58could not go to hospitals or so.
11:00And for various reasons,
11:02we at Manipal Hospital had a large patient base from the northeast,
11:06and they would come by train to see us.
11:09And all that stopped suddenly because travel was not allowed.
11:14And what happened at that time,
11:17there was a patient from Assam
11:21who would normally come once in six months to see me,
11:25mostly to say hello.
11:26He had stable chronic kidney disease.
11:27We didn't have much to do for each of his visits.
11:32And he would spend a week traveling to Baglow for a 30-minute consultation.
11:36During COVID, he could not travel.
11:39His daughter arranged a teleconsultation with me
11:43from a charpoy in a cowshed speaking about his health.
11:48And this is the representation of that.
11:50Literally, this elderly man,
11:52this is, of course, a young man here,
11:54was talking to me,
11:55and I suddenly saw something with four legs move behind him.
11:59And that was his cow,
12:00and he was sitting on a charpoy outside the cowshed.
12:03But we were able to talk to him
12:05because fortunately there was some reasonably good connection.
12:08And we finished our teleconsultation,
12:11and he didn't have to come to Bangalore.
12:15That was the power of telemedicine
12:17where care was delivered instantly
12:19across distance, circumstance, and class.
12:24However, the story does not end there.
12:27That same patient,
12:28once the COVID restrictions were removed,
12:30even today chooses to travel all the way to Bangalore
12:35for a consultation,
12:37despite telemedicine still being available.
12:40The question is why.
12:42I asked him,
12:42why do you come all this way,
12:44traveling for a week to see me for half an hour?
12:47And what he told me was very interesting
12:49because he said he values the human touch,
12:51the reassurance of a doctor sitting across the table,
12:55the trust-building,
12:56a shared presence,
12:58and the stethoscope on his chest,
13:01so on and so forth,
13:03is what he missed on the telemedicine consult.
13:06And that is the essence of today's topic,
13:09Healing 2.0.
13:10Technology can amplify care,
13:12but it cannot certainly replace care.
13:16We must therefore ask,
13:18what is the future of healing?
13:19I believe it lies in marrying technology with humanity.
13:25And we do hope it's a long-lasting marriage,
13:27unlike some of the marriages that happen today
13:29do not last very long.
13:31But this, believe me,
13:32should be a long-lasting marriage.
13:34And this is, in essence,
13:36what it should be.
13:38That is technology,
13:40as you can see the various machines there,
13:43with a prayer,
13:45faith,
13:46and the human touch.
13:48A combination of this, believe me,
13:50will heal almost everyone,
13:52however sick they are.
13:55As we embrace the future,
13:57let us remember,
13:58a robot can never wipe a tear.
14:01An algorithm cannot reassure a family.
14:05A machine cannot inspire hope.
14:07The healing touch,
14:08the look in the eye,
14:10the empathy in the voice,
14:11will always remain irreplaceable.
14:14Healing 2.0 is about combining the two.
14:17Science that is precise,
14:19care that is personal.
14:22Let me end with a story
14:24that has stayed with me.
14:25A long-term patient once told me,
14:28Doctor, you did not,
14:30you did more than treat me.
14:32You healed me.
14:34That, ultimately,
14:35is the aspiration of medicine.
14:38Not just adding years to life,
14:40but life to years.
14:41As India rises on the global stage,
14:48let our health care revolution
14:50be measured not by the machines we install,
14:54or the profits we declare,
14:56but by the people we heal,
14:58the dignity we restore,
15:00and the hope we spread.
15:02Because the future of medicine
15:03is not about technology replacing touch,
15:06it is about technology bringing us closer
15:12to the essence of touch.
15:15Thank you very much.
15:16Jai Hin.
15:17Thank you so much, Doctor.
15:34And that was a very,
15:36very informative presentation.
15:38Most importantly,
15:39how you give such a wonderful direction
15:41to health care,
15:43meeting technology,
15:44but having the humane touch.
15:47And that certainly,
15:48if every doctor follows that approach,
15:50I think it will change the face
15:52of health care in India.
15:54I broadly want to pick up
15:55from the points that you've mentioned here.
15:57To understand that medicine
15:58is now moving at lightning speed,
16:01where do you see
16:02the most promising breakthroughs
16:04when it comes to digital health,
16:06precision medicine,
16:07regenerative therapies,
16:09or even something else?
16:10You can take that mic.
16:14Thank you, Suresha,
16:15for having me here.
16:16There are many things
16:17that have happened
16:18in the last many years,
16:19and as I said,
16:20we were blessed
16:20to witness the change.
16:22I think people of your age
16:23probably have not seen
16:24what it was 50 years ago.
16:26So everything would be
16:28something that you have seen
16:29all through.
16:29But we have seen,
16:31I have traveled in cars
16:32that run on gas
16:33to cars that run on petrol
16:35and cars that don't need any petrol.
16:37So also health care
16:38has certainly come a long way.
16:40Just to mention
16:41a few of the changes
16:42that have happened.
16:43One, I did mention to you
16:44the story of telemedicine,
16:47which has made a huge impact
16:49because we have
16:49a large number of patients
16:51coming from far-off places.
16:53And when I say far-off places,
16:54I'm sure our deputy CM
16:55will be the next speaker.
16:57Even in Bangalore,
16:58coming from Kandakapara
17:00to Manipal Hospital Bangalore,
17:01I would consider it
17:02as long distance.
17:03It takes two and a half hours.
17:05So patients curse you
17:06because they have to come
17:07and wait for you.
17:08So I think telemedicine
17:09has made an impact.
17:10And it's also very useful
17:11when you have a post-op patient
17:12who doesn't have to come back
17:14repeatedly after the surgery.
17:16So many things
17:17that you do on a day-to-day basis
17:18except actual surgeries
17:19or procedures
17:20you can do with telemedicine.
17:22The second, I think,
17:24is what I mentioned
17:24is the remote monitoring
17:26and wearable devices.
17:28You now have devices
17:29like the iWatch, iPhone,
17:32the Ring,
17:33Health Ring,
17:34and the continuous glucose monitoring,
17:36which has made life so easy.
17:38We used to have diabetics
17:39who go into hyperglycemia
17:40at midnight
17:41and morning when they wake up
17:43they have very high sugars
17:44and then you increase the insulin
17:46because what you have seen
17:47is high sugar.
17:48But by and large,
17:49what they needed
17:50was actually decreasing
17:51the evening insulin.
17:51That is very easy for us
17:53to monitor
17:53with the continuous monitoring device
17:56because that will be a graph
17:57of how the sugars were
17:5824 hours in the day.
18:00The second thing is
18:02I had a very interesting
18:03actually true story
18:05of a lady I know very well
18:07who was about 70.
18:08She called me at 4 in the morning.
18:10Nowadays, because of my age,
18:11I don't take up phone calls
18:13in the morning
18:13because she was a friend
18:14that I took the phone call.
18:16She said,
18:16Doctor, I feel a little uneasy
18:19and my iWatch is showing
18:21that my heart rate is fast
18:23and it's irregular.
18:24So I rushed her to the hospital
18:26nearby which happened
18:26to be one of our hospitals.
18:28And lo and behold,
18:29when she came to the hospital,
18:31she had a condition
18:32called atrial fibrillation
18:33where the rhythm of the heart
18:35is lost
18:35and the atrium starts fibrillating
18:37instead of pumping
18:38and your ventricles respond
18:40by extremely fast heart rates
18:42and then your cardiac output
18:44decreased,
18:44you feel dizzy
18:45and it was promptly treated
18:47and she went home
18:48the same evening.
18:50And this could have been
18:51a disaster.
18:51She could have had a stroke,
18:52she could have lost her life,
18:54but the iWatch
18:54literally saved her.
18:56So these kind of things,
18:57we see it all the time
18:58and during COVID
19:00when the hospital
19:01was chock-a-block full,
19:02we had to send back
19:03very, very sick patients.
19:05We had to clean up
19:06the hospital beds
19:06and then home monitoring
19:08of vital signs
19:09including the pulse oximeter
19:11became a lifesaver
19:12because we didn't have
19:13to admit people
19:14who were relatively stable.
19:16So all these things,
19:17I think,
19:17have made a huge difference
19:19in how we manage
19:21chronic diseases
19:22including diabetes,
19:24hypertension,
19:25heart disease,
19:25lung disease,
19:26so on and so forth.
19:27Now we have the watches
19:29that monitor everything.
19:30My watch can monitor
19:30my oxygen,
19:32my heart rate
19:33and so many other things.
19:34And now there are watches
19:35that can also measure
19:36your blood pressure,
19:37so on and so forth.
19:38So you really don't need
19:39any gimmicks
19:41or gadgets
19:42to do all this.
19:43Your iWatch
19:44is good enough.
19:45The third,
19:45as I said,
19:46was robotic surgery.
19:47Huge difference
19:48it has made.
19:49It is easy
19:50for the surgeon
19:51and sometimes
19:53people mistake
19:53that the robot
19:54is operating
19:55and that's where
19:55I said that
19:56doctors are still needed
19:58because the robot
19:59is guided by the doctor.
20:01The doctor
20:01did not be
20:02in the vicinity
20:03of the patient
20:04though usually
20:05conventionally
20:06they're in the same theater.
20:07But we did have
20:08an example
20:08of our surgeons
20:11in Delhi
20:12operating on a patient
20:13in Jaipur.
20:15So it's possible
20:15and actually
20:16transatlantic
20:18robotic surgeries
20:18have happened
20:19from the US
20:20to some country
20:22in Africa.
20:23So it's possible.
20:23Technically it's possible
20:24that the surgeon
20:25would guide the robot
20:26from long distance
20:27as long as you have
20:29good connections.
20:30Then of course
20:31we talked about
20:32xenotransplantation
20:33where genetically
20:34modified pigs
20:36can be,
20:38organs can be
20:38harvested for
20:39organ transplantation
20:42then stem cell therapy
20:43so on and so forth.
20:44So the field is huge.
20:46So I feel medicine
20:47will be very different
20:48in the next
20:495 to 10 years
20:50from what it is today.
20:52But you know
20:53the other aspect
20:53you mentioned
20:54of how healthcare
20:55often comes into
20:56scrutiny
20:56when it is commercialized.
20:58Now somebody like you
21:00who champions
21:01compassionate leadership
21:03how do you reconcile
21:05business realities
21:07with the need
21:07to put patients first?
21:10I would like
21:11to prefix
21:12my statement
21:12by saying
21:13compassionate care
21:15doesn't necessarily
21:16mean free treatment.
21:17because if your
21:19business
21:20if your business
21:22model is
21:23unviable
21:23you cannot
21:24give any care
21:26compassionate care
21:28or otherwise.
21:29So we have to have
21:30a business model
21:31and in my opinion
21:32this is where
21:33the government
21:33and the private sector
21:34should work together.
21:36Because India
21:36is a massive country
21:37population
21:371.4 billion
21:38no one sector
21:40can deliver care
21:40to everyone.
21:41So we have to have
21:43the government
21:43and the private sector
21:44work together
21:45and my mantra
21:47for a viable
21:48healthcare system
21:49is universal
21:50health insurance.
21:52Not necessarily
21:53coverage
21:54but universal
21:54health insurance.
21:56For instance
21:56in the US
21:57without Medicare
21:58UK without NHS
22:01no patient
22:02can come to the hospital
22:03it's so expensive
22:04even the middle class
22:05super middle class
22:06will not afford treatment
22:07but of course
22:08those systems
22:09also have flaws
22:09so we should have
22:10a universal
22:11viable health insurance
22:13and the government
22:14and the private sector
22:15should work together
22:16especially in tertiary
22:17and quaternary care
22:18and the government
22:19probably should focus
22:20on public health
22:22preventive care
22:23primary care
22:24and secondary care
22:25because then
22:25you can actually
22:26prevent serious illness
22:28and you will save
22:29a lot more patients.
22:30Just to give you
22:31an example
22:31clean drinking water
22:32can save more children
22:35than all the hospital
22:36groups
22:36Manipal, Apollo
22:37Max put together
22:38in the country
22:39and that is the beauty
22:40of preventive care.
22:43You know
22:43India has incredible talent
22:45despite that
22:46we see a lot of doctors
22:47researchers
22:47moving abroad
22:48how is it that
22:50we can create
22:51a conducive environment
22:52here to be able
22:53to retain that talent?
22:55That's actually happening
22:56in a lighter vein
22:57I was settled in the US
22:59and they didn't want me
23:00to leave the US
23:01but I came back
23:02that was almost 30 years ago
23:04but what I see today
23:05is there is reverse
23:06brain drain
23:07I think the hospitals
23:08at least I can speak
23:09for the healthcare
23:10hospitals in India
23:12are on par
23:13are better
23:14than many of the
23:15hospitals abroad
23:16in fact I get
23:17many of my family
23:18to fly in from the US
23:19here to get healthcare
23:20they can see the doctor
23:21of their choice
23:22they can go to the
23:23hospital of their choice
23:24they can get the treatment
23:25at 10% of the cost.
23:27And you know
23:29given the paucity of time
23:30I'm going to take
23:31this last question
23:32with you doctor
23:32looking ahead
23:34what excites you
23:35the most about
23:36the future of
23:37Indian healthcare
23:37and which direction
23:39are we headed
23:40given the onset of AI
23:42and the way
23:42technology is booming
23:43you think doctors
23:45will still be relevant
23:46in the times to come
23:4710 years from now
23:48or it will be robots
23:50doing the job?
23:51I think healthcare
23:53is fortunately
23:53heading in the right
23:54direction as I see it
23:55in the last three decades
23:56of my coming back
23:58to India
23:58we have grown a lot
23:59and as I said
24:00we have grown very well
24:01of course technology
24:03has been adopted
24:05and adapted
24:05by most institutions
24:07and I think doctors
24:09who adopt technology
24:11will never perish
24:11but doctors who do not
24:13adopt technology
24:14will perish
24:15robots will always
24:16be our servants
24:17we will never be
24:17the servants of a robot
24:19and I see great future
24:21for Indian healthcare
24:21Dr. Balal
24:23it's been wonderful
24:23talking to you
24:24and most importantly
24:26seeing where healthcare
24:27is headed in the future
24:29thank you so much
24:30thank you
24:30for joining us here today
24:31at this conclave
24:33as I would also like
24:34to invite
24:35Dr. Arun E.D.
24:37Kowai Medical Center
24:38and Hospital
24:39to join us on stage
24:41and hand over
24:42a token of our appreciation
24:43Thank you
24:51and thank you
24:52salīŋŊON
24:53and Podcast
24:54for you
24:55and thank you
24:56to all
24:58Light
24:58everybody
24:58to be the
24:58a token
24:59and
24:59yourself
25:00and
25:01to join us
25:06as soon as you
25:07as soon as you
25:07are
25:08keep
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