Nagarur Gopinath | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1922-11-13)13 November 1922 |
| Died | 3 June 2007(2007-06-03) (aged 84) New Delhi, India |
| Occupation | Cardiothoracic surgeon |
| Known for | Open heart surgery Perfusion |
| Spouse | Rama |
| Children | A daughter and two sons |
| Parent(s) | Nagarur Narayana Rao Sundaramma |
| Awards | Padma Shri Dr. B. C. Roy Award Wockhardt Lifetime Achievement Award IACTS Lifetime Achievement Award |
Nagarur Gopinath (13 November 1922 – 3 June 2007) was an Indian surgeon[1] and one of the pioneers ofcardiothoracic surgery in India.[2][3] He is credited with the first successful performance ofopen heart surgery in India which he performed in 1962.[4] He served as the honorary surgeon to twoPresidents of India[5] and was a recipient of the fourth highest Indian civilian award ofPadma Shri in 1974[6] andDr. B. C. Roy Award, the highest Indian medical award in 1978 from theGovernment of India.[1]
Gopinath was born on 13 November 1922 inBellary,[5] a historic city with manyneolithic archaeological sites,[7] in the south Indian state ofKarnataka to Sundaramma and Nagarur Narayana Rao.[2] He did his schooling at a local school in Bellary and graduated from theMadras Christian College,Tambaram after which he passed the graduate degree in medicine from theMadras Medical College.[2][5] His career started in theRoyal Army Medical Corps[5] in theBritish India where he worked with renowned cardiologist, Samuel Oram and surgeon, Leigh Collis atLahore,Pune andYangon.[2] After retiring from the Army Corps, Gopinath joined Arogyavaram Medical Centre, then known asUnion Mission Tuberculosis Sanatorium at nearMadanapalle, in theAndhra Pradesh district ofChittoor and worked there till 1951.[2] In April that year, he moved to Vellore to join theChristian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) at their cardiology department as a trainee under Reeve Hawkins Betts,[3] who started the department of cardio-vascular thoracic surgery in 1949 at CMC[8] and the founding president of the Indian Association of Cardiovascular Thoracic Surgeons (IACTS).[9]
The move to CMCH gave Gopinath the opportunity to interact with some of the noted medical doctors in India such as A. K. Basu, Meherji Mehta and B. L. Gupta.[2][9] In 1957, he received theRockefeller Foundation fellowship with which he did advanced training till 1958 underC. Walton Lillehei, an American pioneer of open heart surgery,[10] at theUniversity of Minnesota Hospitals in Minneapolis, USA.[3] With the assistance of R. H. Betts, he passed MS in thoracic surgery from CMCH in their first batch in 1960.[2] He stayed at CMCH till 1964 during which period he set up a research laboratory for open heart surgery programme and conducted over 20 tests on dogs.[2] In April 1964, he moved to theAll India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to take up the post of the chief of department of cardiothoracic surgery there.[2][5] At AIIMS, he, along with the then head of cardiology department, Sujoy B. Joshi, established a combined group of Cardiology and Cardiac surgeons.[2]
Retiring from the AIIMS in 1982,[11] Gopinath engaged himself with research activities at Sitaram Bhartia Institute Hospital in New Delhi.[2][5] He died on 3 June 2007 at the age of 85, survived by his daughter Latha, and two sons, Madhu and Ashok.[2][5][11]
To call Professor Gopinath a legend or icon will be an understatement as he was an institution by himself,
Gopinath was one of the pioneers ofopen heart surgery andperfusion in India.[3] In 1962, he performed the first successful surgery forclosure of an atrial and a ventricular septal defect atChristian Medical College and Hospital.[3][4][13] He also introduced pioneering methods inrheumatic heart surgery andcardiac pacemaker implantation.[5] His efforts have been reported behind the introduction of open heart surgery at AIIMS, New Delhi in 1964 when he established the department of cardiothoracic surgery at the institution.[3][5][11] The same year, he is known to have started the course for MCh in cardiovascular thoracic surgery.[5][11] In 1982, when AIIMS opened theCardiothoracic Sciences Centre, Gopinath became its founder chief.[14] His efforts are reported behind the centre receiving two grants, one from theSwedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the other from theDepartment of Science and Technology of theGovernment of India.[5] The centre has now grown into a 200 bedded independent healthcare facility.[14]Gopinath's early researches were on the juvenilemitral stenosis, a disease affecting the mitral valve making it shrink, its clinicopathological features and the disease management.[15] Later, he focused his research onaorta, the largest artery andaortic valve and his efforts helped to create a human and animal heart valve bank atAIIMS, New Delhi.[5] Towards later stages, he became interested in preventive cardiology and he undertook an epidemiological study of coronary artery diseases and itspathogenesis to find out how the disease could be modulated through nutrition and antioxidants.[5] His researches have been documented by way of several articles,[16] the first one published in 1952 in theIndian Journal of Medical Research, discussing about the advent of thoracic surgery in India.[5] The first of his medical papers was published in 1953.[5] He also produced many monographs on preventive cardiology.[11]
Gopinath, along with Sujay B. Roy, organised the first joint conference of the Cardiologists and Cardiothoracic Surgeons at theAll India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi in August 1972.[9] He was associated with the Indian Association of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons (IACTS), serving as its general secretary and president during different tenures[5] and with theIndian National Science Academy as a council member from 1985 to 1987.[1] He served as a visiting professor at the School of Medicine,Stanford University, USA[5] and kept in touch with some of the notable medical personalities in the world such asBrian Barratt-Boyes,Denton Cooley,Christian Bernard andDonald Ross; some of them visited India on his invitation.[2] He is also known to have mentored over 60 cardiac surgeons[5][11] which includedPanangipalli Venugopal who performed the first successful heart transplant surgery in India,[17]M. R. Girinath,Padma Bhushan winner and chief cardiothoracic surgeon at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai,[18]I. M. Rao formerly ofAIIMS, New Delhi,[19]A. Sampath Kumar ofAIIMS, New Delhi andStanley John,[19]Padma Shri awardee.[2][20]
Gopinath, who served as the honorary surgeon to two of thepresidents of India, received theRockefeller Foundation fellowship in 1957 which assisted him in his training at theUniversity of Minnesota.[5] He was a fellow of theNational Science Foundation, USA and the Lillehei Surgical Society, USA[1] and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences and theIndian National Science Academy (INSA),[1] one of the few medical doctors to receive the honour.[5] He was a professor emeritus of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi[5][11] and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement awards fromWockhardt[11][21] and the Association of Cardio Vascular and Thoracic Surgeons of India.[5][11][22] TheGovernment of India awarded him the civilian honour ofPadma Shri in 1974.[6] Four years later, he receivedDr. B. C. Roy Award, the highest Indian award in the medical category, from theMedical Council of India in 1978.[1] After his death in 2007,AIIMS, New Delhi instituted an annual oration in his honour.[23]
