Dr. Sathish Kumar M
Experience: | 10 years |
Education: | Meenakshi Medical College and Hospital |
Academic degree: | MD (Doctor of Medicine) |
Area of specialization: | I am a trained interventional pulmonologist—that's like way beyond just stethoscope and X-ray stuff. What really pulled me in was how you can actually *do* something inside the lungs, not just talk about the problem. I work a lot with bronchoscopy, thoracoscopy, managing pleural effusions, doing biopsies when needed… those moments where precision matters more than anything else.
Sometimes you get a case where nothing's showing up clearly on scans, and yeah, that’s when these skills actually matter the most. I’ve done plenty of diagnostic bronchoscopies, but therapeutic ones hit different—clearing out that mucus plug or foreign body and watching someone breathe again almost instantly. That’s something you don’t forget.
Also I’m always a bit fixated on safety... not obsessed maybe, but cautious. These are sensitive structures, lungs are fragile—you don’t go in unless it’s really needed. But when it *is* needed, you better be good at it. I guess that’s what kept me hooked to interventional side. It’s hands-on, it’s precise, and it doesn’t leave much room for guessing. |
Achievements: | I am someone who never thought I'd be standing in full PPE for hours a day, barely able to breathe, yet somehow managing to help others breathe better. During the peak of COVID in 2022, I was awarded Best Clinician for COVID Care—kind of surreal, not gonna lie. Those months were a blur of emergencies, protocols changing every few days, and too many video calls with families... but yeah, that award meant something. It felt like what we did actually mattered, even in the middle of that chaos. |
I am currently working as Professor and also heading the department of Respiratory Medicine in a reputed medical college — yeah, the kind where you barely get a moment off, but that’s kinda part of the deal right. I’ve been in pulmonary medicine for over 10 years now. Not just reading about lungs, but like actually living in that space... seeing cases, figuring stuff out, getting my hands in where needed and sometimes just listening when that’s all a patient needs. It’s hard to count how many patients I’ve seen across these years—OPD rush, IP admissions, tough ICU calls, TB rounds, asthma follow-ups, weird sleep complaints that mess with lives more than ppl realize. And yeah, sometimes all of this before lunch. I mean, respiratory illness doesn’t always play by textbook rules, so being rigid never worked for me. I tend to stay flexible in my approach, not just in diagnosis but also when talking to families—trying to explain that yes, this looks bad, but here’s what we can do. Academic part? That’s def important to me too. As HOD, I spend a lotta time with PGs, and honestly it’s great — they question things, push ideas, force me to keep rechecking what I thought I knew. Research is there too in the background... although sometimes the admin load tries to eat into that time. But yeah, whenever I can, I do push for good case studies, rare presentations, and sharing learnings through CME or journal stuff. Anyway—lungs are tricky. They don’t shout till they collapse. And when they do, people panik. That's where our role matters. Sometimes it’s about bronchoscopy, or managing complex ILDs, or handling someone gasping on BiPAP in the middle of the night. I’ve been around long enough now to not panic in most of those moments, though I won’t lie, it still hits different when it’s a young patient or something that went south too fast. Pulmonology isn’t just about stethoscopes and spiros... it’s about staying sharp, patient, and ready to pivot when needed. That's where I feel I'm meant to be.
