Dr Adel Quttainah Interview

Gulf News

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00:00So my name is Dr. Adel Katena. I'm a consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon. The question

00:09is how did I develop an interest in medical antiques? This goes way back, maybe 20 years

00:16ago when I was a medical student and got interested in a small scarificator. It's like one of

00:26those really old devices that kind of scratches and makes the skin bleed. In the past, they

00:34thought that when you sacrifice some blood, the humors or the fluids in the body gets

00:41balanced and you'll get your health back. So that got me interested in old medicine

00:45and how medicine actually kind of developed. Ever since, I was just kind of everywhere

00:49I go, I just go to the antique markets and find all the medical devices or anything to

00:55do with medicine. And that just got worse, that addiction got worse and worse and worse.

01:00Developed to having so many pieces and so many items and devices. Got to the point where

01:07I was just storing them and then the idea came about where why don't I display them

01:11for my patients and the clients that come visit our centers and hospitals. So which

01:16I did and that's how the idea of the Katena Medical Museum came about. This museum is

01:22located in Kuwait, Shab area and that's the whole floor and it's for anybody to come and

01:28visit and there's no entrance fee. And you know, just come.

01:32Any plans of bringing the museum here to Dubai?

01:38In the future, yeah. In the future. I mean, we're just working out the logistics for now

01:41to see how we can move all these items down here to this hospital and then just kind of

01:47display them here.

01:48Could you highlight some of the pieces that you have?

01:51I mean, the recent purchase was what's called the Iron Lung. The Iron Lung. In the fifties

01:57there was this polio pandemic where a lot of people were getting, a lot of kids were

02:03getting paralyzed and they couldn't breathe. So they had to come up with this big huge

02:09tube cylinder that the patient would go in and basically spend the rest of their lives

02:14in that tube because that would help them breathe. Without this tube or what they call

02:21the Iron Lung, these patients would die for sure. So that was a recent purchase that I

02:25got from London. We also have like the oldest stethoscope, which is, you know, the stethoscope

02:31to have the auscultations of the heart. It's a French surgeon. The neck around like 200

02:37years ago, this guy was shy to put his head on female patients because, you know, so he

02:45created that. He got some cardboard paper and he kind of twisted around, made it into

02:50a cylinder and he started that way, trying to listen. And he found out not only that

02:56this kind of distanced him from the patient, but also the heart sounds were amplified and

03:01they were much better. So he came up with the first stethoscope. He made 20 pieces initially

03:06and we have one of them in the museum.

03:08And how do you acquire these stethoscopes?

03:10I mean, you just go on, nowadays it's so easy because you go on the nets and you search

03:14and you search and you search. This particular piece I bought from New York, from a collector

03:18in New York. So I had to travel to New York, meet the guy and get that stethoscope. It's

03:23made out of wood.

03:24Are they auctioned?

03:25No, they're not auctions. Sometimes they're, these things are never auctioned, but they,

03:32you know, they are in the possession, usually possession of dealers also, antique dealers

03:36and stuff like that.

03:37And they must be costing a hell of a lot.

03:39Yeah, yeah. I mean, some of them...

03:41What's the kind of range?

03:43I mean, that stethoscope was around $25,000, you know, but just a stethoscope.

03:47And what about this iron lung?

03:49Iron lung was, iron lung, I was very lucky because I've been looking for an iron lung

03:53for maybe like last five, six years. And there was a company in England, in London, that

04:01does props like, you know, for movies and stuff like that. And they had two iron lungs.

04:06But for the longest time, they would not sell them. They would not sell them. And until,

04:10you know, we kept on nagging and nagging, and then they just gave us one. So it was

04:14around like £10,000.

04:16And what is, you know, some of the most expensive items you've bought for the museum?

04:22I mean, there's a lot of different pieces, yeah. Stethoscope being one of them. We have

04:29a lot of old books, written 400, 500, 600 years ago. Handwritten, of course, in medicine

04:37that come out of, you know, Mecca and that area.

04:41And I understand that you have some devices and tools from World War II?

04:48Yeah, yeah. We have, I mean, you know, when the, you know, we have the kits that go into

04:54the fields, you know, where you can set up a whole operating room in the field to try

04:59and, you know, rescue all these injured soldiers and stuff.

05:04We have an interesting also display of actually swords, surgical swords. It was in the past,

05:14the bigger the surgeon, the more high-ranking the surgeon, the more, you know, detail he'd

05:21have on his sword. And of course, then they found out all this, you know, all the crevices

05:25up on the sword kind of harboured bacteria and stuff like that. So, yeah, they ended

05:31up killing more.

05:32So they were actual swords, not knives?

05:33Yeah, yeah. Like a sword, yeah. Like a sword, yeah. For amputations and stuff.

05:38What I get out of it is like, you know, it's like basically CSR, you know, so giving back

05:43to the community. I mean, we don't actually charge patients for coming in. We also have

05:49a couple of coordinators there that sit and explain everything to all the guests. So it's

05:55kind of giving back. So it's a win-win. I like collecting and then I also like sharing

06:01all these beautiful pieces with our guests.

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