Going beyond fixing bones
The emotion is tangible – her tear-filled eyes say it all………a little boy who was beyond any healer’s help.A six-year-old from Galle who had lost one eye to retinoblastoma and was also having a complicated osteosarcoma (bone cancer) of the leg. She was a surgical post-graduate trainee in the paediatric ward of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL). She bought colouring books for him and whenever she could spare the time sat with him and coloured those pictures.
Now, 12 years later, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Melanie Amarasooriya (43) is spurred by this boy she will “never forget” to do her utmost for anyone who comes her way.
Dr. Amarasooriya, the only female among the 117 Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeons in Sri Lanka, has specialised in hand-wrist-elbow surgery. She has also excelled academically, securing a doctorate (PhD) in the field, along with two exclusive fellowships which have gained her worldwide recognition.
Training including in the United Kingdom (UK) under the International Surgical Training Programme (ISTP) of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) England and experience have honed her skills which she invests in her patients, putting both heart and soul to making them better.
She recalls the case of a 13-year-old from Kurunegala who had fractured his right hand and lost its use for writing after native treatment. “Atha haduwa,” she smiles, explaining that she operated on his hand and now he not only writes with it but also plays basketball.
Another was a nurse’s 14-year-old son from Galle who had suffered a sports injury about 1½ years ago. He was in such excruciating pain in his right thumb that he was struggling to write with his left.
Several doctor visits and psychological treatment later, he came to her. She diagnosed it as a ligament injury, X-rayed the area after applying a local anaesthetic and operated. Just a few weeks ago, the cast was off and he has resumed writing with this hand.
Currently lecturing at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Moratuwa, Dr.Amara-sooriya goes back in time to her teenage years at Devi Balika Vidyalaya when her subjects of choice were mathematics and physics, leaning towards engineering. Having been among the first five island-wide at both the Ordinary and Advanced Level examinations, her father had been insistent that she should do medicine and so it was.
Before entering the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo in 2001, as a “pastime” Dr. Amarasooriya became a journalist at this very newspaper.
“I fell in love with orthopaedics": Dr. Melanie Amarasooriya. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
Medical school was followed by internship at the Professorial Unit of the North Colombo (Ragama) Teaching Hospital. Later while at the Kegalle General Hospital, she was drawn to surgery as the quick decision-making necessary had a close affinity to mathematical and logical thinking.
Her boss, Ear-Nose-Throat (ENT) Surgeon Dr. Selvi Vettivelu, was a complete contrast to preconceived notions about a surgeon – she was a woman and surgeon, a mother figure not at all bossy.
Getting selected for General Surgery at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM) in 2011 after a competitive examination, without giving much thought Dr. Amarasooriya had chosen orthopaedics as she had a six-week-old baby boy in the equation by that time.
“I fell in love with orthopaedics,” she says, working long hours, as much as 48 hours, in the operating theatre of the National Hospital’s Accident Service, “fixing things and making a difference” under Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Vasantha Perera.
The adrenaline rush pointed her towards finding her passion! Dr. Perera, a man of few words, had told her when she indicated her interest that she “can be like well-recognised Dr. Leesa M. Galatz in America”.
Thereafter, it was more training under more experts such as Dr. G.L. Punchihewa, Dr. Rukshan Sooriyarachchi and Dr. Narendra Pinto.
Just two months into her work with Dr. Pinto, she relives how he pitched into her and instructed that she do 100 hand and wrist surgeries. Portraying a tough exterior, he is a “softie” both to his trainees and patients, she laughs, adding that he had told her that although he had doubts about her, she was one of his best trainees.
Dr. Amarasooriya confesses that she did not feel very skilled nor did handling bones feel an inborn talent for her, but hard work and “giving my all” is what has brought her to where she is today.
As a female surgeon, she says that though in other countries there is a lot of talk about sexism and surgery being a boys’ club, she faced no such challenges in Sri Lanka. “My colleagues are extremely supportive.”
Her training, meanwhile, in hand and upper limb included being a Fellow under the prestigious ISTP in 2016 at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals, one of 12 major trauma centres in the UK.
Usually, post-graduate trainees have to find a job themselves as a service commitment but the mediation by RCS England smoothened the way. It also entailed her being treated as one of their own, with a mentor being appointed and higher remuneration than other Sri Lankan doctors who had to find jobs themselves.
For Dr. Amarasooriya, a life-changer came when she attended a surgical conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she met “fascinating” Prof. Greg Bain, under whom she worked unfunded “for the experience” in 2018 for six months at Adelaide’s Flinders University, Australia.
Her first posting as a specialist to Mannar on her return to Sri Lanka
Exhausted and in pieces, but a “different me”, she had been after that tenure when she returned to Sri Lanka for her first posting as a specialist to Mannar.
Another fellowship for advanced training in hand-wrist-elbow had been at Melbourne’s St. Vincent’s Hospital, Australia in 2020, followed by Prof. Bain “adopting” her with the offer of a PhD during the COVID-19 pandemic, which she completed in end-2023, with a nomination for the Vice Chancellor’s award.
Her doctoral studies under perfectionist Prof. Bain, had led her down the academic pathway of in-depth research, honing her presentation skills and publications in reputed journals.
More honours have come her way with the award of a Travelling Fellowship of the Hong Kong based Asia-Pacific Wrist Associations and a Fellowship of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), United States of America. While she learnt a lot through these, the world has also opened out with her name being known globally.
Preparing to speak at the European Hand Meeting in June in Helsinki, Finland, here in Sri Lanka, she is mentoring three male trainees to become good clinicians as well as academics. Excellence in academia, she firmly believes, gives an insight to minute detail which, in turn, strengthens clinical work.
Whatever Dr. Amarasooriya does, her patients always come first. Once a complex surgery is done, holding close to her heart all her patients in whose lives she has made a difference, she does not wash her hands off them but goes home, reflects on her work and ponders how to improve more next time.
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