Dr Vivek Viswanathan

06/12/2025

Inside every paediatric operating room is another classroom—one where we teach empathy without lectures, and resilience without slides.

Trainees don’t just copy our technique.
They copy our tone.
Our silence.
Our courage.

Let’s build a surgical culture where compassion is as teachable as skill.
Where mistakes are discussed openly.
Where a young surgeon feels safe to say, “I struggled today.”

02/12/2025

Recurrent UTIs in children often leave families exhausted and clinicians searching for better answers.
My latest research dives into what traditional urine cultures tend to miss: the hidden microbial communities and resistance genes shaping rUTIs in children.

Using metagenomic sequencing, our study revealed:
🔹 A marked drop in urinary microbiome diversity in rUTI cases (seen in the Shannon index chart, page 5)
🔹 ESBL and quinolone-resistance genes in 71% of affected children
🔹 A significant loss of protective Lactobacillus (Table 2, page 4)

These insights push us toward diagnostic stewardship and precision antibiotic therapy — a step that can reduce recurrence, preserve commensal flora, and protect our children from escalating resistance.

Proud to contribute to the growing conversation on microbiome-informed paediatrics.

Read the article: MAR Pediatrics (2025) — “Metagenomic Signatures in Paediatric Recurrent UTI” https://www.medicalandresearch.com/current-issues/Journal-of-MAR-Pediatrics

Brief summary of the article for search engines (150–160 characters).

29/11/2025

The Vanishing Surgeons of India — And Why It Should Worry Us

Every NEET-PG cycle tells the same story: medicine and radiology surge ahead, surgery slips further behind.
And honestly? It hurts — not because surgery needs prestige, but because our healthcare system needs surgeons.

Surgery isn’t just a branch. It is a reckoning.
A millimetre decides outcomes.
A moment decides futures.
A single lapse can change a family’s world.

Not everyone is meant for that life — and that’s okay.
But the few who step into this fire willingly? They carry qualities our system cannot afford to lose: resilience, anatomical imagination, humility under pressure, and the ability to act with clarity when everything around them is chaos.

Yet today’s landscape makes it harder to choose surgery:
• High medico-legal risk
• Longer time to settle
• Unpredictable lifestyle
• Growing scrutiny and diminishing trust

If we want world-class surgical care in India, we must fix this environment — not just for surgeons, but for patients who depend on them.

To the young doctors who feel that unmistakable pull toward the OT: don’t ignore it.
You are needed.
You always will be.

28/11/2025

“Doctor Saab… is surgery ki guarantee dogey kya aap?”

A question every surgeon hears, but rarely discusses openly.

Patients don’t ask for statistics — they ask for certainty in a world that has suddenly become uncertain. As clinicians, our responsibility is not just the technical act of surgery, but the emotional scaffolding around it.

I never promise outcomes.
But I always promise honesty, diligence, meticulous care, and the quiet discipline that surgery demands.
The guarantee lies in the intention, not the unpredictability of biology.

We operate not just on bodies, but on the trust placed in us.

23/11/2025

Every day, doctors work to save someone’s child, parent, partner, or friend.
But behind the white coat is a person quietly breaking under the weight of a system built on sacrifice without support.

Doctors don’t need praise.
They need rest, safer workflows, functioning digital tools, and leadership that listens.

Healthy doctors create healthier hospitals.
It’s time we stop pretending otherwise.

12/11/2025

🩺 “We’ve reached a point where documentation takes longer than the operation itself.”

What began as a system to protect patients has become an endless audit trail — where surgeons spend more time proving care than delivering it.

Somewhere, documentation stopped protecting doctors.

It’s time to design systems that preserve both patient safety and physician sanity.

12/11/2025

The operation is done.
But the work isn’t.

Hours of documentation — each click more about compliance than care.

We need systems that protect people, not just protocols.

✍️

04/11/2025

🩺 “Between Flooded Corridors and Robotic Consoles: My Journey Through India’s Pediatric Urology Training”

I never thought I’d compare my surgical journey to Mumbai’s street ducks — but perhaps that’s the most honest metaphor for what it means to practice pediatric urology in India. You learn to float, adapt, and find grace amidst chaos.

This week, I published a deeply personal reflection tracing my path from my residency years at National Pediatric Surgical Institute (NPSI), Delhi — where the workload could crush even the most ambitious spirit — to my fellowship at Oceanview Children’s Hospital (OCH), Mumbai, where I encountered the complex moral terrain between cutting-edge robotic surgery and patients who could barely afford a meal.

What began as survival slowly became understanding.
That resilience in Indian surgery isn’t heroic—it’s communal.
It lives in the OR nurse who quietly teaches you a better stitch during a chai break, in the senior who improvises under mobile light, and in the Mumbai traffic jam that teaches patience better than any textbook ever could.

If you’ve ever trained, taught, or healed in a system stretched thin yet held together by human grit, you’ll find a part of your own story in this piece.

🔗 Read the full paper here: https://www.multiresearchjournal.com/arclist/list-2025.5.6/id-5171



Disclaimer: The names of the institutes and patients have been fictionalised to maintain their integrity and privacy. But the experiences and incidents mentioned are all true.

30/10/2025

Everyone says, “Medical students study 16 hours a day.”
But let’s be honest — that’s not how it really is.

There were times I studied nonstop, surviving on coffee and determination.
And there were times I went days without opening a book.

That rhythm — between drive and burnout — taught me more than any exam.

Now, as a paediatric surgeon, I realise medicine isn’t just about how long you study.
It’s about how deeply you learn, how you recover, and how you keep showing up.

To every student who feels like they’re falling behind — you’re not.
You’re living the real, human version of this journey.

Take a break.
Laugh a little.
Live your life outside the hospital too. 💛

23/10/2025

Failure doesn’t define surgeons. Our response to it does. 💔➡️❤️

Every surgeon carries silent scars —
Cases that didn’t go as planned.
Patients we couldn’t save perfectly.

But surgery isn’t about being flawless.
It’s about showing up again —
even when the outcome shakes you to the core.

Because courage isn’t the absence of mistakes.
It’s the commitment to care, again and again.

We don’t heal perfectly.
We heal persistently.

18/10/2025

At every antenatal scan, parents hope for reassurance — but sometimes, they hear the word “hydronephrosis.”
Here’s the truth: most babies with this condition are perfectly healthy.
With simple follow-up scans and guidance from your pediatric urologist, the majority recover without any intervention.
Early detection gives us time — and time protects kidneys. 💙

Learn more: https://www.drvivekviswanathan.com/post/understanding-antenatally-detected-hydronephrosis

11/10/2025

We often think of surgeons as people who can’t afford to be wrong.
But in truth, the bravest surgeons are the ones who can admit when they are.

In paediatric surgery, every case is a lesson in humility.
No matter how skilled or experienced, we all face moments that test our judgment and humanity.
Saying “I was wrong” doesn’t reduce your stature—it raises your standard.

Because leadership in healthcare isn’t about being flawless.
It’s about being honest, accountable, and deeply human.