Variety and breadth of Urological surgery was appealing: Dr. Archie

She was in Sri Lanka in November last year and was excited about attending her sister’s wedding in May this year. But COVID-19 put paid to these plans of Dr. Archie Fernando.

“I can’t wait to come back and see all my family, as soon as travel restrictions are lifted,” she says with emotion about her family here who have strongly supported and encouraged her in everything she does.

Dr. Fernando who was born and raised in Colombo, had schooled at St. Bridget’s Convent and Colombo International School. It was at the tender age of 17, after her Advanced Level that she headed to Cambridge University in the UK to study medicine.

When asked: Why medicine and why urological surgery; she says that she was always practical-minded, “good with my hands and liked problem- solving”.

“The idea of being able to use these attributes to help someone in any way really appealed to me. I have wanted to study medicine as long as I can remember – it wasn’t really a choice, it’s just what I wanted to do,” says Dr. Fernando (37), explaining that towards the end of medical school, when they started spending more time in the wards and OTs, it was “obvious to me that I would enjoy and be better suited to a career in surgery”.

Urology was attractive as a specialty because it has a whole range of operations from the “very minor” (cystoscopy – telescope examination of the bladder) to the “very major” (removing kidney cancers that extend up the vena cava to the heart). However, at that stage she did not know which end of the spectrum she wanted to be at, but the “variety and breadth of the specialty was appealing”.

The other aspect of urology that was attractive to her was the camaraderie which was different from some of the other surgical specialties.

It is not just in the UK that Dr. Fernando puts her gifted hands to good use.

She had also performed the first robotic surgery in Pakistan in 2017. Karachi had acquired a robot in 2015 but did not have the expertise to use it safely on a patient. Dr. Fernando and a team had headed there, done the first couple of operations and then trained the local team so they could start doing the cases themselves. Some of the local team had not taken instructions from a woman very well!

She has also given of her expertise to her motherland and a photograph shows her and a colleague after they operated together on a baby’s heart at the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital in the south.

However, 24/7 of her time is not spent in the OT, whether in the UK or elsewhere. Sailing with her husband is a favourite hobby throughout the year as also playing tennis or sitting at the piano. More recently, she has taken up the banjolele (a fourstringed musical instrument) but says: “I’m not very good because I’ve only been learning during COVID!”