Video - Blossom Ball 2010 - Camran Nezhat
Tamer Seckin
But before that, I would like to invite someone, who is very special. He came from Stanford. He is the man who sacrificed himself for this cause. Last year, we have honored someone like him. That was Harry Reich. He is here tonight; however, this man has also single-handedly, he changed, he did a revolution in surgery. He brought camera, video camera into surgery in early late 80s. Nobody used video camera in surgery, that is Camran Nezhat and I would like to honor him tonight and ask him to be joining me at the podium and I would like to give this little piece of appreciation for him. These things do not matter much. The ______ is important for his lifetime commitment to the science and treatment of women within endometriosis. Thank you, Camran, for all that you have done.
Camran Nezhat
George Bernard Shaw said the reasonable man adjusts to the world and unreasonable man tries to adjust the world to himself. If it was not because of that unreasonable man, the world would not change. I would like to acknowledge and thank this organization by Tamar and Padma that they have tried to somehow and someway be unreasonable because unfortunately in medicine although scientifically me and some other people, they have tried to be unreasonable and go against the current and change medicine for the benefit of people like you, it is not only women, who benefit from the minimally invasive technology and the techniques that we all discussed today. It is not only women. It is for men, for children, it is for your sister, your mother, your brother, your father. The technology that was developed and I, my brothers, and other friends here, we were alone probably at the very beginning of the curve. We developed it, which is not only for women. All of you have had gallbladder surgery is because of our technology that gynecologists developed.
So, unfortunately in medicine, things go very, very slowly. An analyst is a force from people like organizations like this that they are able to educate the public, it will not go far. In medicines, things are very, very slow. What they are talking about is not anymore opening up big large incisions, men and women, that is all we are talking about. We can do that. Endometriosis patients are responsible for that change. Why? Because when we develop this technology and when I started working on this with my other friends, a lot of them are here, the issue was for minimally invasive surgery. There was an article in Newsweek in 1992, I think, it was February, Jeff Crowley was their author, that they featured some of the work at that time that I started doing. At that time, I said in 20 years, major abdominal surgery would be gone, but now it is almost 20 years and still very small portion of the surgeries are done by minimally invasive surgery. Why? Because in medicine, we do not have the power to persuade the ways that organizations or situation like this would be done. In New York City alone, beside Tamar, I know my brother, Farr Nezhat, who is at Professor of Columbia and also at the Head of the Minimally Invasive at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. He has been doing endoscopy or endometriosis surgery for years and teaching but still people are doing many major abdominal surgeries.
It is admirable that you have taken this cause. You are trying to change and this change although it sounds new, it is not really new. When something is new, people say it is not true. Many, many years goes by, and people they say no, this is true, it is not a lie; and many, many more years goes and at that time when they say it is true, it is not a lie, they tell it is not important, it does not matter, it is not important at all. Many more years goes by and it is proven to be important, then they say it is not new anymore. This is the history that I have witnessed for operative laparoscopy. It is still very new unfortunately because people do not want to accept it. We admire you. We thank you and I appreciated all the help you are giving to these people to make it going minimally invasive surgery. Thank you.