THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dr K Mohandas, former director, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, has been appointed as the first Vice- Chancellor of the Kerala Health and Allied Sciences University (Medical University).
The University headquartered in Thrissur was set up recently and all the Medical Colleges; Government, cooperative and self-financing, will be affiliated to the University.
Mohandas retired as the Director of SCTIMST on July 31, 2009.
He is a postgraduate in Anaesthesiology from the Christian Medical College, Vellore and took MD from the Medical College, Mysore. After a year as a faculty member at the Calicut Medical College, he joined as Assistant Professor of Anaesthesiology at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Medical Centre (the fore runner of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology), Thiruvananthapuram in 1976.
He was the chief anaesthetist when the first open heart surgery was performed at the SCT Centre in 1976. After more than a decade as Professor and Head of the Department of Anaesthesia, he was appointed as the Dean of the Institute in 1993. He took over as the Institute’s Director in 1994.
Recognising his professional, academic and research contributions to anaesthesiology, and his role in raising the profile of the specialty, the Royal College of Anaesthetists of the United Kingdom conferred FRCA on him, the first Indian to receive the Honorary Fellowship.