Plastic surgeon, Nobel Prize nominee Sharadkumar Dicksheet, MD, dies at 80

By PSN Extra staff

11/22/2011 at 11:00AM

Sharadkumar Dicksheet, MD, a PSF Maliniac Fellow and world-renowned plastic surgeon widely known for his efforts to repair cleft lips and palates, and other facial deformities, through the India Project - Save Disabled Children, died Nov. 14 at age 80.

Dr. Dicksheet - who suffered from numerous health concerns, including laryngeal cancer and paralysis to his right side - battled through his infirmities for years to continue performing facial repair procedures in India. Dr. Dicksheet was reportedly nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with India's indigent. During his 1998 nominating speech in the U.S. House, his Nobel sponsor, then-U.S. Representative Michael Bilirakis (R-Fla.), called Dr. Dicksheet "the essence of humanitarianism."

Confined to a wheelchair after an accident in 1978 and unable to speak, Dr. Dicksheet nonetheless kept a tireless surgery schedule, performing tens of thousands of free surgeries for the children of India.

Dr. Dicksheet was honored with numerous humanitarian awards over the course of his career, including the Kellogg's Hannah Neil "World of Children" Award and the World Congress of Cosmetic Surgery's "Lifetime Achievement Award in Aesthetic and Restorative Surgery," and he received the Padmashree Award from the president of India - all in 2001.

A native of India, Dr. Dicksheet spent the last several years in New York; a memorial service was held Nov. 14 in Flushing, N.Y.