Gia Chkuaseli is a famous surgeon. In fact, he is so well known that one would assume him to be venerable and grey. When you meet him, however, his youth takes you by surprise. His verve and radiating energy fascinates as you realize that wisdom and experience do not necessarily come with  age.

On  the days he does not perform surgery, he wears a spotless white coat and on surgery days, a dark blue one. It is difficult to interview him in his consulting room, there are always so many patients waiting. And of course, it is impossible to interview him in the operating-room!

“Why did you decide to be a doctor? Was it a childhood dream, or... maybe you wanted to be a fireman...”

“I did want to be a fireman, and very much too,”  Gia said amicably but seriously. I could not help laughing and knew immediately that the interview would work out well.

“We used to live on Chitadze Street, opposite to where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is today. I went to the kindergarten on Dzerzhinsky Street, next to the firehouse, and as a child I always dreamed to be a fireman. It is hard to say when or why it ever occurred to me to become a doctor. My mother, father and grandparents were all engineers. There were no doctors in my family, and one would expect I too would follow the family tradition.

“It is easy to make a mistake at the age of seventeen when one graduates from school and is still too young to know exactly what to do for the rest of one’s life. There are those lucky  cases, of course, when one chooses to study the profession which later is realized to be indeed one’s vocation. Only few of my fellow students stayed with their specialty despite the fact that ours was an academically strong class.

“I used to play basketball, and I wasn’t bad. I even had a good chance to join Dynamo Tbilisi. I had no time for both and I decided in favour of a medical career. Choosing one’s profession is like a lottery. You may get the lucky number, or you may end up regretting your entire life that you did not become a fireman!”

After graduating from the State Medical Institute in Tbilisi, Gia received practical training in onco-gynaecology under Professor Levan Charkviani. Later he worked as an oncologist in Tbilisi’s Kirov district and then at the Oncological Hospital. Everything seemed to be going well for him, but Gia still had a feeling that something was missing. The Leningrad School of Oncology was internationally renowned and remains so to this day. It was here that cancer research started in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The first Oncological Research Institute was also founded in Leningrad, led by prominent scientist and physician Professor Bokhmann.

“I wanted very much to meet this man and work with him for at least a month. I even composed a letter to him and had it in my pocket ready to be sent when,  in the administrative foyer on the forth floor I met Dato Gvamichava. He asked me if I wanted to go to Leningrad to do a postgraduate course there. I thought he was joking, after all, he might have heard from someone about the letter. While I was entertaining these thoughts, Dato said, “They called from Leningrad and said they have one vacancy and that application papers must be ready immediately.” We went to the director of the hospital and he too asked me if I wanted to go. I said “Of course!” It was eleven o’clock in the morning and at noon the following day I had all papers ready and was flying to Leningrad.

“I was given a very warm welcome there and we have remained close friends to this day. The examination date was set. In May 1987, I became a postgraduate student. Two years later I defended my candidate’s dissertation but stayed on in Leningrad for one more year. Then I returned to Tbilisi to work as a senior research fellow at the department headed by Professor Levan Charkviani. Only six months later, however, I again went to Leningrad to do my doctoral thesis which I finished in 1993.

“The following two years, I worked in the Oncological Hospital and later at the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology as a senior research fellow of the Department of Operational Gynecology.

“Drawing a lucky number in a lottery is not enough. It is just  a chance, a small chance to use what gifts you have . Sometimes to win something is a heavy and perpetual responsibility.

“I think that my becoming a postgraduate student in Leningrad was a sheer luck. It was a coincidence and anyone could have gone there instead of me. But this chance changed  my entire life. I owe the rest to the people with whom I was fortunate to work in Leningrad. They are true professionals and when they see your dedication and commitment to achieving something, they support you in every way they can.

“I was still a student when I performed my first surgery under Mikheil Gigineishvili who was the head of our department at the Medical Institute. But I regard Levan Charkviani as my first teacher,  and I also cherish Professor Bokhmann who was not only a teacher to me but my second father as well. He received me as a member of his extended family. Bokhmann died two years ago and his death was one of the reasons why I did not stay in Leningrad. It was just too hard to remain there without him.

“Medicine in the West is highly advanced, especially in terms of the material and technical basis. As for experience, I don’t think that the Russian school is in any way lagging behind the West. This is true also of the Georgian school, since for decades these two have been closely connected. Almost all the leading doctors in Georgia have received a part of their education in Russia at one time or another. I am sure that in some areas we are even ahead of the West. Yet one has to restrain one’s ambitions working in a poor  country where people simply cannot afford to buy the medication they need. Expensive and state of the art equipment is badly needed.

“We in our clinic cannot complain, though. Our medical diagnostic center is affiliated with the State University and is self-supporting  so we only have  patients who can pay. It is a huge problem. How can poor people get treatment? On the other hand, what can doctor or a nurse do without the resources to treat patients with. It is hard and painful to talk about this, but are we not reaping what we have sown ourselves.

“What else shall I tell you? I have “escaped” the most difficult years. Otherwise, had I stayed, I may have given up this profession altogether. Doctors had no means to subsist. They were threatened  in hospitals, sometimes beaten and killed. Will the new generation of doctors raised  in those difficult years be able to  meet the challenges of today?

“Currently, many Georgians work in Russia. Among them are many excellent professionals. Many want to return home, but here no one thinks about improving the environment to encourage them to come.

“Back to myself, though. I am a professor at  the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the new Medical and Biological Department of Tbilisi State University. I have committed and motivated students and I am very optimistic about the future.”

The interview lasted longer than I expected. Occasionally, a patient would peek in the door cautiously, timidly. They knew it was not a consultation day, but they hoped to see him anyway. The medical staff, however, would often come in to inquire and clarify things. The next day was a surgery day, and even on the day of this interview, he could have been asked to perform an emergency operation.

Gia dialed a number on his mobile phone. “Can you come over. I need to show you one patient, we may even need you in surgery.” He was calling Baadur Mosidze, Director of the Institute of Surgery. “We are like a family. We always help each other and ask for advice. Baadur will come and advise. He is humble. After all, doctor who has no doubts is not a doctor. I have several friends whom I trust and always consult with.” I was pleasantly amazed,  such sentiments are so rare, and the opposite so frequent.

In medical terms, a patient’s account of his medical history is called anamnesis. This article is a short anamnesis-questionnaire with slight lyrical digressions. Making the diagnosis is the reader’s prerogative.

Marina Shotadze