श्रीभगवानुवाच |
लोकेऽस्मिन्द्विविधा निष्ठा पुरा प्रोक्ता मयानघ |
ज्ञानयोगेन साङ्ख्यानां कर्मयोगेन योगिनाम् || (3:3)
Shi Bhagavān Uvācha
Loke ’smin dvi-vidhā Niṣhṭhā Purā Proktā Mayānagha
Jñāna-yogena Sāṅkhyānāṁ Karma-yogena Yoginām
In Srimad Baghavad Gita, Chapter 3, Verse 3, Sri Krishna says, “In this world, twofold are the spiritual path revealed by me in the beginning, O Anagha (sinless one)! To the mature ones (Sankhyas), it is abidance in the self (i.e.), Jnana yoga, whereas to the ones who are naturally inclined to action, performing Karma yoga has been prescribed.”
One such great Karma yogini and a notable daughter of Bharatmata is Dr S I Padmavati (1917-2020). She went to the West to train under the best cardiologists and institutions across Europe and the USA for seven long years. But she still chose to come back and serve her motherland, to be called the Goddess of Indian cardiology and a doctor with a heart of gold.
Padmavati was born on June 20, 1917, in Magway, British Burma, as the third of six children. Though born abroad, her family roots lay firmly in Tamil Nadu. Her father, Sivaramakrishnan, was a barrister with a thriving legal practice in Burma. This is primarily because the most prominent business people were from the Tamil-speaking Nagarathar community. Therefore, there was a great demand for Tamil-speaking legal practitioners in British Burma. She graduated from a school in Magway, standing first in the province, winning many gold medals and prizes.
A chance meeting with an acquaintance who was a Licensed Medical Practitioner (LMPs worked under Civil Surgeons after finishing their three-year course) kindled her interest in medical studies. After her Intermediate at the Burma University (founded in 1929), she joined Rangoon Medical College to do her MBBS, which she finished with magna cum laude (with great honour). She was awarded the best outgoing student with distinction in Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Forensic Medicine, Hygiene and Public Health in a class with only three women.
Pearl Harbor and a temporary setback
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, they turned to Burma, bombing Rangoon and killing over 2,000 civilians. In March 1942, Padmavati, her sisters, mother and her eldest brother (who had a disability) left Magwe in the last plane available, leaving their father and two other brothers in Burma.
They finally settled in Coimbatore, journeying through Chittagong and Calcutta. They completely lost touch with the three men left behind until the end of the war.
She worked in multiple hospitals in India during this time. Once the war ended, she went back to Burma to join the Civil Affairs Service (Burma) [CAS (B)], which was set up to speed up rehabilitation work in the country. In 1946, she left for the UK as a Burma State Scholar for further medical studies.
Following the heart
When Padmavati went to the UK for her postgraduate studies, she already had FRCP in her sights. She was posted at London’s National Heart Hospital, the world’s first dedicated heart hospital, where the UK’s first heart transplant, coronary angioplasty, and stent implantation were performed.
She studied and trained under giants such as Sir John Parkinson, regarded as the founder of modern British cardiology. She also worked and trained in the Brompton Hospital for Chest Diseases and the Hospital for Skin Diseases, London. She focused on chest, heart, neurology, and skin diseases.
Padmavati obtained another MRCP in Edinburgh, which was upgraded to a Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP). From the UK, she went to Sweden, where she worked and learnt at the Karolinska Institute, an advanced cardiology centre, before moving to the USA in 1949.
The final touches to postgraduation
In 1949, Padmavati did her first fellowship in the USA at the famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore under Helen Taussig, a renowned pediatric cardiologist known for her work on Blue Baby Syndrome. She was also introduced to the latest technology in Cardiology, including the heart-lung machine. As she swam through the ocean of Cardiology knowledge, she also loved swimming in the Atlantic Ocean during her free time.
In 1952, she did another fellowship at Harvard University at the Massachusetts General Hospital under Prof. Paul Dudley White, who is recognised as the founder of preventive cardiology. She also had the opportunity to learn under many other famed cardiologists, such as Andre Cournand, who shared a Nobel prize for cardiac catheterisation (1956). Padmavati considered Dr. Taussig and Dr. White as her foremost Gurus in cardiology, and they remained lifelong friends, visiting India as guests of Padmavati for years to come.
Installation of the Goddess of Cardiology in Bharat
She returned to Bharat by the end of 1952. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, the first Health Minister of free India, offered Padmavati the job of a Lecturer in Medicine at Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC). The other attractions that made Padmavati settle in LHMC were the two tennis courts and a swimming pool, which were her two other passions.
In 1967, she moved to the newly formed G. B. Pant Hospital for Super Specialities as the Director and Consultant in Cardiology. She later took additional charge as the Director and Principal of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC), which she held till 1977. Under her watch, in G. B. Pant Hospital for Super Specialities, the first pacemaker surgery in India was done in 1960, the first Coronary Care Unit (CCU) of the region was inaugurated in 1971, and the first Electrophysiotherapy (EPS) study was undertaken in 1972. And various postgraduate and doctoral specialisations in cardiology were offered there for the first time in 1960.
She was instrumental in forming the All India Heart Foundation (AIHF) in 1962, with her Guru, Dr. Paul White, as the inspiration. She continued to associate with this institution well after she retired. Padmavati also played a massive role in the opening of the National Heart Institute in 1981, the first heart institute in India and Asia. Her focus was on areas such as preventive cardiology, international cardiology and cardiovascular epidermology. While she was a champion cardiologist, she had equal respect for the Indic medicine and the ancient medical systems of Bharat. In her words, “How should one deal with the apparent conflict between allopathic and traditional medicine? I believe that both uninformed scepticism and entire belief are wrong. The present prescription is that one should keep an open mind on the subject, and although this may sound strange in the present era of evidence-based medicine, many of these remedies may be useful and not harmful.”
Learning more languages sharpens you as a person
She grew up in a polyglot household, switching between Tamil, English, Hindi, and Burmese. She started at a Burmese-medium school much before English-medium schools opened in Burma. Later in life, Padmavati added French and German to her repertoire because knowing these two languages would help her score higher marks in the Member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) exams.
A multi-faceted doctor
Padmavati didn’t just excel in academics, she was an equally accomplished sportsperson with a keen interest in Table Tennis, Lawn Tennis and Squash. She was also an accomplished swimmer, having won many medals and prizes, a sport she would keenly practice even in her ripe old age. She was a music lover who devoured any Carnatic and Western music and was a voracious reader of fiction and non-fiction of both contemporary and classic nature. She had a keen interest in astronomy, especially watching eclipses and other celestial phenomena, which she learnt from an uncle of hers, whose speciality was skygazing without a telescope. That is not it, she was an accomplished birdwatcher, another hobby she continued enjoying till very late in life. And, she was also an animal lover, especially dogs (till she lost three of them and had a broken heart).
The awards that added her name to them
She won many awards and laurels for her contributions to the field of medicine and cardiology in India, including the Padma Bhushan (1967) and Padma Vibhushan (1992) and the B. C. Roy National Award (1975). She lived a very active and whole life till COVID-19 took her away from us on August 29, 2020, at a ripe old age of 103. Dr. S. I. Padmavati is remembered fondly by the medical fraternity as a strong-willed woman, a silk saree and solitaire diamond aficionado, the goddess of cardiology in India, a doctor with a heart of gold, and a role model for future generations of cardiologists.
Here is what Thiruvalluvar says about great people like Dr. S. I. Padmavati.
உரைப்பார் உரைப்பவை எல்லாம் இரப்பார்க்கொன்று
ஈவார்மேல் நிற்கும் புகழ். (232)
Uraippar Uraippavai Ellam Erapparkkondru
Eevaarmel Nirkkum Pugazh
Give to the poor and add glory unto thy name: there is no greater profit for man than this – The Kural or The Maxims of Thiruvalluvar by VVS Aiyar.
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