Hannah Neil 
World of Children Awards

  Seventy-one-year-old Sharadkumar Dicksheet, M.D., has survived a partially paralyzing car accident that left him in a wheel chair, terminal cancer of the Larynx, and two severe heart attacks that have left him with only 17 percent residual heart capacity. Despite the challenges he has faced in his own life, Dicksheet will board a plane this fall for his annual mission to provide free corrective plastic surgery for children and infants who suffer from facial deformities in India.

Born in Maharashtra, India, Dicksheet came to the United States in 1958 to study surgical residency. Upon completing the International Medical Association training program, he faced a hard decision. He was torn between permanently returning to his homeland, or continuing to practice medicine in New York. After much deliberation, Dicksheet decided to do both. He practiced plastic and reconstructive surgery in New York for part of the year, and then traveled to the poorest regions of India to provide free plastic surgery to camps for the latter.

 His accomplishments include:

The India Project - Plastic Surgery Camp
In 1968, Dicksheet founded The India Project - Plastic Surgery Camp. Since that time, he has traveled to India each year and has performed more than 54,000 surgeries on poor and needy children who suffer from congenital and other facial deformities. In addition, another 2,420 surgeries have been performed by a team from the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons who aid Dicksheet in his efforts.

The Plastic Surgery Camp sites are operational throughout India from October to March of each year. The American surgeons each perform between seven and 12 operations to repair congenital facial deformities daily, and Dicksheet performs 35 to 50 operations daily. A total of 200 to 500 cases are treated during each camp, and approximately 4,000 operations are performed during the entire camp season. The Plastic Surgery Camp also functions as a teaching facility, where local plastic surgeons are invited for training through local medical societies and hospitals.

During non-camp season, Dicksheet seeks contributions and donations for medical drugs, equipment and supplies to run the camps during the next season. There is no administrative overhead for the program, so every penny can be spent helping needy children. All of the physicians involved with the Plastic Surgery Camp, including Dicksheet, donate their time and pay their own travel and lodging expenses for the trip.

Awards
According to a 1999 interview in India's The Week, where he was named "Man of the Year", Dicksheet said, "If a poor man is born with a deformity, he is scarred for life." This four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and recipient of India's esteemed Diwaliben Mehta Award has dedicated his own life to removing the scars from the poorest children in India.

Dicksheet has also received the 2001 Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Medical Integration Council and CHEMTECH Foundation, the 2000 Bombay Chamber of Commerce Award, the 1998 Vanguard Award, and the 1997 Humanitarian Award of the American Society of Aesthetic Surgery.

Dicksheet was born on Dec. 13, 1930, in Pandharpur, India.