Former AIIMS Director Dr. P Venugopal passes away

Dr. P. Venugopal, former Director of AIIMS and pioneer of cardiac surgery, who conducted India’s first heart transplant and over 50,000 heart surgeries in his career, passed away peacefully on 8 October 2024.

He will be cremated on 9 October 2024 at Lodhi Road Crematorium at 3 pm.

He will be remembered by his wife, Priya Sarkar, his daughter, Saiansha Panangipalli, and the scores of patients, families and medical professionals whose lives he touched throughout his illustrious career.

He and his wife jointly published his memoirs, Heartfelt, in 2023.

He introduced many advanced concepts of cardiac surgery from the Western world to India.

In his 4 decade career , he had a ringside view of some of the most impactful medical and political developments of his time

He was also a man of uncompromising personal and professional integrity. Dr Venugopal was a humanitarian and philanthropist in the truest sense of the words, hlgiving free medical advice to and performing free surgeries on hundreds of underprivileged people. He has the honour of performing the first surgeries at the what are currently the world's only two totally free-of-cost to-the-patient superspeciality hospitals in the world (at Bengaluruand Puttaparthi)...a honour He was given for his enormous contribution to making both the hospitals a reality