Dr. Nageshwar Reddy is the first Indian doctor to receive all 3 Padma awards.
He got the Padma Shri in 2002, the Padma Bhushan in 2016 and Padma Vibhushan in 2025.
Born way back in 1956 in Visakhapatnam, when Andhra Pradesh was still called Andhra State, Reddy decided that the human gut was his calling. He went to Kurnool Medical College, and then on to Madras Medical College.
Not content with just being a run-of-the-mill gastroenterologist, he went and founded the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG) in Hyderabad, which, they claim, is the biggest such hospital in the whole world.
He won the Master Endoscopist Award in 2009, also known as the “Nobel Prize of Endoscopy” and the Rudolf V. Schindler Award in 2021, which is apparently the highest award for gastroenterology and named after the "father of gastroscopy".
Dr Reddy is a fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences. He’s been called the “father of endoscopy” in India.