My Teacher

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."
--Henry Brooks Adams
I was remembering my days in Israel, where I had gone to fine-tune my skills in Assisted Reproduction. Those were the turbulent years in Tel Aviv with suicide bombers causing havoc. The spirit of the citizens was remarkable - that is one brave race. I was really lucky to work with the finest teachers in the subject. There are over 25,000 IVF cycles done every year in Israel with a population of 4 million. The State pays for IVF till every patient has completed her family with two kids. If she divorces and re-marries, she again has the support of the state to have two more children to complete her new family. As a result, the public IVF centers have huge volumes of patients and the trainees & junior specialists can hone endocrinological & surgical skills. The practical experience that these fertility physicians imbibe is unrivalled in any other country. I remember the tips & tricks handed down to me by Prof. Danny Seidman, Dr Ariel Weissman, Dr Adrian Shulman & Prof. Ilan Tur Kaspa. Even today, I feel at times that these buddies are right next to me guiding me along the most difficult of cases. The student-teacher relationships graduated into close friendships & even today I ask them for advice in complex situations or for trouble-shooting. Today, the relationship is on a more even keel and they turn to me for guidance on Medical Tourism & third party reproduction issues.