The director of Faridabad and Noida-based Metro Heart Institute, Dr. Purshotam Lal, was recently awarded the Padma Bhushan for his outstanding work in the field of cardiac surgery.
The director of Faridabad and Noida-based Metro Heart Institute, Dr. Purshotam Lal, was recently awarded the Padma Bhushan for his outstanding work in the field of cardiac surgery.
Dr. Lal is no stranger to honour and accolades: He was selected for the Padmashree by the government in 1993. A fellow of the American College of Cardiology and Society of Cardiac Angiography and Interventions, USA, Dr.
Lal has held several faculty positions in the USA before he decided to chuck it all up and return to India.
As he puts it, Because I did not want to serve the people of another country when my own needed me more. And that is exactly what he has been doing for the last several years. He has introduced the largest number of procedures in the field of interventional cardiology as an alternative to open heart surgery.
The heart surgeon has played a key role in setting up the heart institutes — there are two more Metro Hospitals coming up in Meerut and Amritsar — to serve people at affordable costs. In fact, when Dr. Lal started the first Metro Institute in Noida in 1997, he made coronary stenting available at Rs.98,500 only when most other hospitals charged around Rs.1,50,000.
Dr. Lal has been a trendsetter of sorts, impressing upon non-resident Indian doctors and professionals to return to the country and utilise their talents for the needy.
