Personality of the month: November 2004 www.nihindia.org
Dr Naresh Trehan
Chief Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeon, Escorts Heart Institiute & Research Center, New Delhi, India
I am sure many of you must have read in “The Washington Post” last month about the state-of-the-art heart surgery at the Escorts Heart Institute, New Delhi, India. I was elated especially when an unknown American gave me that page to read in the Metro, probably he could figure out that I am from India. No doubt amongst all complains and grumbles such news makes you feel proud. A few months back “The New York Times” wrote about the man behind, Dr. Naresh Trehan, “Taken out of context, it looks like Naresh Trehan is playing a video game. He stares intently into a console at a three-dimensional image, his feet pressing on pedals, his hands maneuvering levers. But in this case, context is everything. On a television screen several feet from Dr. Trehan, a heart, embedded in gelatinous tissue and blood, throbs insistently. Several feet farther still, lies the body that is home to the heart, on which Dr. Trehan is, at this moment, operating.” Yes, he is the man to introduce ‘robotically controlled cardiac surgery’ that is the latest frontier in heart surgery, in India.
What impresses me the most is that he left his lucrative career and that too at the apex when he was earning over 1.5 million a year as a Manhattan, New York, heart surgeon in the mid-1980’s to go back home and start a hospital from scratch. “I was driven by a certain amount of arrogance — a kind of national pride. I could do things better than most of my American counterparts”, he said. With this determination, he opened The Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center, New Delhi, in 1988. Today it is among the largest of its kind in the world, with 350 beds, 9 operating theaters and satellite operating rooms in five cities performing over 4000 heart surgeries each year. Not only Indians but also people from abroad (including the US) fly to Escorts, New Delhi, for treatment, making it the second place in Asia, after Japan, to perform robotic surgery. On some fronts, like “beating heart” surgery where most American cardiac surgeons still hesitate, Dr. Trehan has left the West far behind. Escorts has done about 10,000 beating heart surgeries, including 4,000 last year alone, putting it in the top tier worldwide for this procedure. Most importantly, the center devotes 10 percent of its income to free care for the poor and subsidizes care for government employees, members of the military and retirees. Staff members in its mobile echocardiogram van see 100,000 villagers a year.
Since childhood, he has been competitive, a sportsman, who wanted to win. His parents’ intellect, (who were also doctors and took refuge at the time of partition) and his childhood exposure to ethics and family values reflect on him. He had wanted to be a pilot, when his father said no and he turned to medicine. After graduation from King George Medical College, India he came to United States, where he chose heart surgery and practiced under Dr. Frank Spencer at New York University. Today he is the most prominent heart surgeon in India. So far in his career has performed 30,000 heart surgeries. Even today, working a 15 hours plus day, he participates in as many as 16 surgeries every day, hustling from one OR to the next. He says he will not retire or rest until he has personally trained 100 surgeons, a human legacy he will leave for his country. Instead of stopping with one renowned institution, the 58-year old dynamo is building other hospitals. He is the personal surgeon to the President of India, his awards include Padmashri and Padma Bhushan. After a long day of work, he finds peace and stays away from stress with yoga and meditation.
Escorts could be like a drop in an ocean in a nation of a billion people but his efforts are immense, priceless; hats off for such a vibrant personality, a driven leader.