In a village hospital, doctors separate twins to script medical history

On June 20, six friends from the 1982 batch of Christian Medical College (CMC) in Vellore and their former professor operated in the same theatre, after nearly 30 years. In a small missionary hospital tucked away in a village in Betul district, 200 km from Bhopal, near the southern border of Madhya Pradesh, the doctors performed the first successful separation of conjoined twins in a rural setting in the country.

The twins Stuti and Aradhana—christened by the hospital staff—were delivered in Padhar Hospital in May 2011. The "shocked" parents, a couple from Chicholi block, 40 km from Betul, told hospital authorities they would not be able to take them home. Formal adoption procedures were initiated at the district collector's office, and the babies were "donated" to the hospital.

Barely a month after their birth, Dr Rajiv Choudhrie, medical superintendent of the hospital and a general surgeon, contacted his friends, over the phone—Dr Sanjeeth Peter, cardiothoracic surgeon based in Nadiad in Gujarat, Dr Gordon Thomas, paediatric liver transplant surgeon in Sydney and Dr Anil Kuruvilla, head of the department of neonatology in CMC, Vellore.

"Back then, I did not know if separation was even possible, let alone in this remote hospital of ours. I simply sought their medical opinion on the state of the fusion, and asked them if any intervention was possible," Choudhrie recalls.

Over the next few weeks, Dr Deepa Choudhrie, Rajeev's wife, and a radiologist at the hospital, prepared extensive reports—CT scans, MRIs and ECGs that were emailed to Peters and Thomas. Their examination brought good news. "It was a form of cojoinment known as thoraco-omphalophagus, i.e. the twins had two separate hearts in a common sack, that is called the pericardium sack, and is crucial for supplying blood to the heart. Secondly, their livers had separate blood supplies, but were joined by a bridge

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