Meet Very ‘Weighty’ Surgeon

‘Operate’ upon the personality of this stocky surgeon and you get what resembles his forte. He is a famed bariatric surgeon and a ‘very arty’ man too. What a semantic coincidence! He not only gives wings to his patient bogged down by the morbid piles of fat but also enlivens him with a zest for life.

Dr Atul Peters of Primus super specialty hospital is not only a very skilled surgeon but a fitness freak as well. He has enviable toned abs and stands in stark difference to bulky bariatric surgeons in other hospitals of the capital. This 5ft 7 inches 42-year-old doctor hits gym more often than not. With about 500 bariatric surgeries to his credit, you can well surmise his hectic schedules in the hospital but he never compromises with his habit of keeping in shape. His motto seems to be—shape up or ship out.

Coincidently, this weight-loss surgeon has also been a weightlifter. He says: “Since 1988 on, I did weightlifting daily but after 2002, it has become a little off and on but so far as gym is concerned, I will never call it quits.”

When you see this stocky and no-nonsense fat-loss surgeon, you cannot be faulted to think that he must be a very frugal eater. Looking at the doctor, an obese person not only feels like hitting the gym instantly but also cursing all those mouth-watering eatables that brought him to this predicament. But hold, make no mistake about him, if you look on him as an ascetic, you will be in for a surprise. He even indulges himself and visits watering holes of the city but burns his body equally avidly. He is far from forsaking gourmet’s delight. He says: “When I look at a morbidly obese (fat) patient under my knife, I invariably muse: binging he did alright but had he burnt himself the way I did, the poor guy would not have been here under the knife. I say eat but burn too. Do not keep piling up till you become morbidly obese which can only be corrected by bariatric surgery.”

His accomplishments do not end here. Bizarre as it might seem for a busy doctor, he is an avid artist too. Add to it his skill of self-defence, Krav Magu, a combat art of Israel. Would you believe he knows how to play a number of musical instruments? Piano, guitar, saxophone, clarinet, mouth organ, violin, trumpet, drums, the list is long and goes at least to 20. According to him, surgery is also an art and he thinks through bariatric surgery he sculpts the body of the patients like a sculptor does. And even after this maze of diverse activities, he finds time to care about his charity works. He looks after an old-age home established by his father and runs free OPD and distributes free medicine as well. He is a devout Christian too.

Bariatric surgery may not be a joke but if you ask Angel, his 10-year-old daughter, what his father is like, she will say he is a joker without mincing her words. That is what she wrote about her father in a school essay competition. She had to write about her parents. She wrote: My mom is serious but my dad is a joker. His son Anmol cannot disagree. In fact, his jovial nature and sense of humor come handy in his profession. He could relate better to his patients by enlivening them. He cuts flab and jokes too.

He jazzes up his surgery with his humor and really endows the patient with a zeal for living. He is a surgeon who is known for reducing the space of stomach to cut on appetite but his talk is so very ‘appetizing’.

He was recently in the news for his landmark fat-loss surgery (bariatric one) on a 13-year-old Afghani girl of 135 kg. Bariatric surgery is not indicated in this slender age but her precarious condition left no choice. But he did it most successfully. In India it was first bariatric surgery on a patient below 18. It certainly speaks volumes about his skill as a surgeon.

 By D Kumar