Eyeworld

83 EW IN OTHER NEWS July 2015 by Lauren Lipuma EyeWorld Staff Writer desperately needed someone who could specialize in glaucoma care. Dr. Thapa agreed to join the Tilganga staff and to become its resident glaucoma specialist. After starting at Tilganga, Dr. Thapa travelled to remote places in Nepal to set up eye camps and perform charity cataract surgery for local residents. During one of these trips, he operated on an elderly woman who had been blind for years and had never seen her grandson. "When I her did surgery, it was miraculous," he said. "She started crying and she was able to see again. That was a turning point in my life—I realized that this had been my calling. I had resisted studying medicine, but then [I realized] I was meant to do this." With a newfound passion for medicine, Dr. Thapa travelled to Australia in 2002 to complete a glau- coma fellowship and then returned to Nepal, ready to take up his post as Tilganga's glaucoma expert. Through fundraising efforts, he established a brand new glaucoma wing at Tilganga, the Nepal Glaucoma Eye Clinic. With the hospital ready to treat glaucoma patients, Dr. Thapa plunged himself into doing research. "Nepal needed a large epidemi- ological study of glaucoma because nobody really knew the burden of glaucoma [here]," he said. "I didn't know how much money it would cost or all the infrastructure that would be required, but I was deter- mined just do to it." ophthalmology, but still felt that something wasn't quite right. He did not want to give up on medicine after coming so far in his medical education, but felt little excitement at the prospect of being a physician. "I was very frustrated again because the calling for music was so strong," he recalled. "I was really not interested in my profession." Soon after graduating, he met some other ophthalmology students in India and formed a band called Donesis, named for the trembling of the lens. The band decided to try something new and use their music to support a cause—they started performing charity concerts to raise money for a fund for the blind. "For the first time, I thought my music was helping people," Dr. Thapa said. "That was really cool." Discovering a passion for medicine Not ready to give up on his medical career, Dr. Thapa returned home to Nepal and applied for a position at Tilganga. Although he applied to other hospitals, Tilganga was his first choice. "It was philosophically the right place for me to go," he said. "It was just a small eye center then. But the kind of work they were doing—the grass roots level of work—was really attractive … the hospital was not for profit, and at the same time it was going to be reaching a lot of people." Dr. Thapa interviewed with the hospital's co-founder, Sanduk Ruit, MD, who told him that they sing and play the guitar through listening by ear. Although it was his dream, he wasn't able to pursue mu- sic as a career—Nepal has no formal music schools. In grade school, his parents asked what he would like to do other than music. "I said, 'If there's anything else that's close to my heart, I would like to study med- icine,'" he recalled. Attending medical school in Kolkata, India, Dr. Thapa earned his Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) in 1993. Although he couldn't formally study music, he played in several bands during medical school. After graduating, he did not feel committed to practicing medicine—and decided to pursue his dream. "I was frustrated because my calling was actually music," he said. "I came back to Nepal and told my parents that I was quitting medicine and going to study music." Dr. Thapa took a year off from medicine and formed a jazz-rock band called Bypass. In 1995, Bypass recorded one of the first Nepali jazz songs, called "Andheri." Facing pressure from friends and family, Dr. Thapa decided to return to Nepal to finish his medical training, but he didn't want to give up playing music. "I decided if there was anything in medicine I would have to choose, I would choose ophthalmology," he said. "[I knew] I wouldn't have any night duties, and I would have more time to play music." He returned to India and completed his Master of Surgery in Glaucoma specialist and jazz musician performs charity concerts to end blindness in Nepal S uman Thapa, MD, PhD, director of the glaucoma service, Tilganga Insti- tute of Ophthalmology, Kathmandu, Nepal, has achieved many firsts in his career. He is the first ophthalmologist to complete a PhD in Nepal. He started Nepal's first glaucoma fellowship training program. He conducted Nepal's first-ever glaucoma sympo- sium. But he's achieved another first that is a little more surprising—he's Nepal's first ophthalmologist to be the lead singer in a jazz-rock band. Many physicians have found ways to balance medicine with creative endeavors, but Dr. Thapa has gone one step further—he uses medicine to create opportunities to play music, and plays music to raise money to provide medical care. After struggling to decide which path to choose, this Nepali physi- cian found a way to merge both of his passions into one fulfilling and inspiring career. Music or medicine? As successful as Dr. Thapa has been as an ophthalmologist, medicine was not his first career choice. "Being a doctor was not really my dream," he said. "I was a musi- cian at heart." Dr. Thapa has played music for almost his entire life, learning to From guitar to glaucoma: Physician fuses careers in music and medicine Dr. Thapa (second from left) and his band, the Rusty Nails Patients at one of Tilganga's eye camps in a remote area of Nepal close to the Tibetan border continued on page 84

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