Wheelchair Doctor (Paperback)

Wheelchair Doctor (formerly titled Take My Hands) is the awe-inspiring recounting of the remarkable life of Mary Verghese, a doctor in India during the 1950's and 60's. As a young woman training to be a gynecologist at the Christian Medical College & Hospital in Vellore, India, she was involved in a road accident which resulted in spinal cord injuries so severe that her very survival was in doubt. In spite of being a paraplegic, she overcame great odds and was able to continue her medical career from a wheelchair as a doctor, surgeon and a pioneering rehabilitation specialist. As part of her own very slow and painful rehabilitation, Mary traveled to Australia and the United States where she learned techniques that she was able to introduce to India, a country that at the time had little to offer patients needing rehabilitative care. Eventually, Mary established and became the head of the Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation in Vellore. Initially devastated by the outcome of her accident, she later realized that had it not been for what happened, she would have just been an ordinary doctor, but now she had the means to help and inspire others in unforeseen ways.