Bengaluru: Born in a quiet corner of Karnataka and educated in Kannada medium until middle school, Dr Chandrashekhara SH carried with him a simple ambition when he chose medicine over engineering — to serve society. Decades later, the journey of purpose reached one of the most remote places on the planet. Standing inside the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, the 46-year-old doctor recently performed a real-time telerobotic ultrasound scan on volunteers located nearly 13,000 km away in Maitri, one of India’s research stations in Antarctica.The demonstration, conducted on Jan 30 as part of AIIMS Research Day, used a robotic arm holding an ultrasound probe that replicated the doctor’s hand movements through a haptic device. The technology was developed during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021-22 to enable contactless scanning of patients. This time, however, the goal was more ambitious — to test how far the technology could reach.
“We used a haptic device and the movements I made with my hand here were replicated by the robot,” Dr Chandrashekhara said. “Antarctica is the remotest place we can think of in terms of internet network and connectivity. If this can work there, then it can definitely be used for diagnostic tests in rural and remote areas within our country, bridging the critical diagnostic gap.”The achievement is rooted in humble beginnings.Dr Chandrashekhara was born in Hagaribommanahalli, a small town in Vijayanagara district, to a schoolteacher father and a homemaker mother. He studied at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in his hometown in Kannada medium until Class 8 before switching to English. Strong in academics and drawn equally to engineering and medicine, he ultimately chose the latter for its potential to directly help people.His path led him from Mysore Medical College and Research Institute in Mysuru, where he completed his MBBS, to AIIMS Delhi for his MD. Today, he serves there as a professor in the department of radiodiagnosis, pushing the boundaries of medical technology while staying deeply connected to his roots.“Wherever I go, my heart is in Karnataka,” he said. “I still speak to my family only in Kannada. Every chance I get, I visit my hometown. No visit to the state is complete without meeting my parents and relatives.”Beyond its symbolic reach to Antarctica, the telerobotic scanning system holds practical promise. According to Dr Chandrashekhara, it can support abdominal ultrasounds, ECGs, and the detection of conditions such as kidney or gall bladder stones. For a doctor shaped by small-town Karnataka and guided by the idea of service, the technology represents more than innovation — it is a way to bring quality healthcare closer to people who need it most in the rural, remote corners of the country and across the world.
