CHENNAI: After obtaining his master’s in dental surgery and working for a few years as a lecturer, Dr SM Balaji came to Chennai to start his practice way back in 1991 because he saw the state capital offering more opportunities to update his professional skills, enhance his scientific knowledge and pursue research. Looking back, he has no regrets for coming to Chennai from Thoppur in Kanyakumari district.Balaji Dental and Craniofacial hospital on Kavignar Bharathidasan Road at Teynampet, is perhaps the only place in the country that can be called a one-stop destination for all dental and craniofacial treatments. Equipped with state-of-art technology, the hospital has an array of diagnostic and treatment facilities under a single roof, mainly two operation theatres, 20 beds and a pediatric ICU.What started as a clinic in 1994 developed into a full-fledged hospital over the years. Now patients from all over the world undergo treatment for a plethora of dental and craniofacial problems, particularly facio-maxillary surgeries. The entire hospital was built on the strength of Balaji’s dexterity and expertise. Always ready to take up challenging medical cases, he performed a series of complicated surgeries to correct a congenital facial deformity on a Sri Lankan girl recently and earlier gave a new life to an Iraqi soldier maimed by a stray bullet during the civil unrest in Baghdad. Apart from being a world renowned facio-maxillary surgeon, he is also into academic pursuits. He was the first doctor to be awarded a PhD in facio-maxillary surgery by the Dr MGR University in 2000. His book, published by Elsevier, is prescribed as the text book for students of facio-maxiallary surgery around the world. He has also published over 60papers in international and national level medical journals and has attended several scientific and medical conferences all over the world. When he won the B C Roy Award in 2005, he was the youngest dental surgeon to be chosen for the prestigious honour bestowed on medical professionals in India. Apart from that, he has won several Asian and national awards for his scientific knowledge and expertise in the field of facio-maxiallary surgery. One among them is the Jinwalla Trophy of Merit given by the All India Maxiofacillary Association, which he won two years in a row. Balaji would have performed around 20,000 surgeries in the last two decades. He has done jaw correction for many actors in Tamil cinema. Though he would not reveal the names of his patients, he remembers having corrected the jaws of at least three boys who later went on to play lead roles in Tamil films. Two girls also became actresses after his surgery, which he says is very complicated and requires extraordinary precision and presence of mind. Among his regular patients are many film personalities, politicians, bureaucrats, police officers and judges. Many High Court judges who started taking treatment from him during their stay in Chennai, continue to visit him for consultation and treatment after their elevation and transfer to other courts in the country.However, Balaji remains a humble person, and remembers his younger days in Chennai having Dum Biriyani at Buhari’s in the wee hours. Triplicane High Road is one of his favourite places, other than Marina, in Chennai for this happily married man, who has two daughters, one of whom is training to be a dentist. A religious person, Balaji says his dexterity was a gift from God.
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