Dr Arti Sharma

Training

I qualified MBBS at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, in Mangalore, then trained in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Asian Institute of Medical Sciences in Faridabad, where I took my DNB — the Diplomate of National Board.

Before moving into consultant practice I was a senior resident at ESI Okhla in New Delhi, at Sakra World Hospital in Bangalore, and at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Hospital in New Delhi.

I went on to take fellowship and diploma qualifications in minimal access surgery — the FMAS and DMAS — because so much gynaecological surgery is better done through keyhole incisions than open ones.

Cosmetic gynaecology came later, and deliberately. Too many of the women I was seeing had complaints that general gynaecology did not have a good answer for, so I took a diploma in cosmetic and aesthetic gynaecology affiliated to University Medicine Greifswald in Germany.

How I practise

I treat every patient as I would want someone to treat my own family. That sounds like a slogan; in practice it mostly means time. Time to take a history properly, time to explain what I think is going on, and time for you to ask the second and third question — which is usually the one you actually came in with.

Being a woman myself helps. Patients raise intimate things sooner, and a lot of what I see has gone untreated for years for no better reason than that it felt too awkward to bring up. Heavy periods that were called normal. Pain during sex that was never mentioned to anyone. Discomfort after childbirth that everyone assumed was permanent.

The relationships tend to last. I still hear from women years after a delivery or a procedure, and I take that as the real measure of whether I did the job well.

Practising in Dubai

I now see patients at NMC Medical Centre, Deira. Before moving to the UAE I practised in Bangalore, India, in obstetrics, gynaecology and cosmetic gynaecology.

I consult in English and Hindi, and speak fluent Nepali and conversational Kannada.

Research

I have published on the management of uterine fibroids, on the classification and audit of caesarean sections, and a case report on ruptured cornual ectopic pregnancy. The papers, with citations, are here.