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| Picture courtesy - HealthPost |
Dr Sivaramakrishna Iyer Padmavati, born in 1917 in Rangoon, Burma, became India’s first female cardiologist at a time when women were rarely seen in medicine. She was the first female student to study at the Rangoon Medical College, where she earned her MBBS degree.
During World War II, Padmavati and her family were forced to flee Burma when Japan invaded. They escaped to Coimbatore, India, leaving their male relatives behind. After the war ended, the family was reunited, and Padmavati left for postgraduate studies in London.
She became a fellow at the Royal College of Physicians in London and Edinburgh, and later trained under legendary cardiologists Helen Taussig and Paul Dudley White at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Medical School, respectively.
Padmavati returned to India in 1953 to serve her fellow citizens. She joined Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi, becoming India's first lady cardiologist.
At Lady Hardinge Medical College, she set up North India’s first cardiac catheterization lab and later established India's first DM Cardiology course. In 1962, she founded the All India Heart Foundation, a pivotal moment in Indian cardiology. She joined Maulana Azad Medical College in 1967, and during her career, she managed three major institutions simultaneously.
Dr. Padmavathi’s contributions earned her the Padma Bhushan in 1967 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1992. Even at 90, she became a fellow of the European Society of Cardiology and continued working tirelessly until the age of 95. She and her sister, Janaki, poured their life savings into a trust that funded heart surgeries for the poor.
Known as the “Godmother of Cardiology,” she remained dedicated to improving cardiac care in India. Her legacy includes the National Heart Institute, which she established in 1981. Her work touched countless lives, and she never retired from her passion for cardiology until she passed away at age 103 in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Dr. Padmavati penned her autobiography, "My Life and Medicine," at the remarkable age of 99!
Excerpts -
Ours was a highly polyglot household, and we were used to switching between multiple languages. As children, we spoke Tamil to our mother, English to our father, Hindustani to our domestic help from UP and Bihar, and Burmese among ourselves (siblings).
Doctors today are better off than those of earlier generations, but modern medical equipment has resulted in the diminishing of their clinical acumen. They have become too dependent on pathological tests and monitoring devices, and intuitive diagnosis is rare these days.
I have been fortunate to have the guidance of many gurus in my life. I am grateful to my earliest teachers, my father, for instilling in me a love of books and history, and encouraging me to be objective about everything in life, including myself. From my paternal grandmother, I have learnt to be courageous, strong, and resilient, and not be hampered by whatever obstacles I may find. I am also thankful to my teachers in school, especially the Englishmen who encouraged my love for literature and mathematics. Later on in life, I was lucky to find medical gurus, who shaped my professional life and personality, much in the same way my teachers in my youth did. Dr. Paul White, Dr. Helen Taussig, and Dr. Ancel Keys were the ones who played major roles.
At the centennial celebrations of Lady Hardinge Medical College in 2016, where she was the Guest of Honour, she humorously remarked, “The only thing I could recognize was the statue of Lady Hardinge, as everything else had changed.
Throughout my career, I have been asked repeatedly whether I have faced any discrimination because I am a woman. My answer has always been a resounding NO. Perhaps I was lucky because cardiology had not developed much then, and I was trying to make a breakthrough in the subject.
I have seen all shades of life and cherish my experiences as trophies.