The passing of a long-serving former Prime Minister, celebrated also as an erudite finance minister who boldly untethered the Indian economy, has evoked a national mood of respectful remembrance.
While I too share that emotion as a grateful citizen, my memories are also greatly enriched by my association with Dr Manmohan Singh as the doctor who chaired his medical panel from 2004 to 2014. Those years gave me an opportunity to observe and admire the many qualities of head and heart that marked him for the greatness the whole world celebrated.
I first met Dr Singh when he was Finance Minister in Mr PV Narasimha Rao's government. While serving as a cardiologist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, I was also the officially appointed Personal Physician to Prime Minister Rao (PP to PM) during 1991-96.
The only personal interaction I had with Dr Singh during that period was when I went to invite him as the chief guest at an Indo-US cardiology conference I was organising. Apart from his pleasingly courteous demeanour during our meeting, his erudite and sagacious speech at the conference won my admiration and gratitude.
I was surprised when a request was communicated some years later to the Director of AIIMS, from the Prime Minister's office in 2004, asking for my services as Personal Physician to the newly sworn-in Prime Minister Dr Singh. Perhaps I should not have been surprised that he chose to repeat Mr Narasimha Rao's choice, because Dr Singh never wavered in his admiration for Mr Rao till the end of his life.
I told the Director that I could not accept that assignment, despite the high honour, since I was by then the Head of Cardiology at AIIMS. The combination of my clinical and administrative duties coupled with my research-related commitments would make it difficult for me to accompany the Prime Minister during his travels abroad and within India.
Instead, I recommended two highly competent and conscientious younger faculty members of the cardiology department at AIIMS to be personal physician and alternate physician. The Prime Minister's office went on to constitute a medical panel, chaired by me and having both personal physicians and Dr Nikhil Tandon (diabetes specialist at AIIMS) as members. We continued to officially assist with the healthcare needs of Dr Singh during the ten years of his premiership and unofficially thereafter.
Dr Singh was an exemplary patient. He readily accepted medical advice and followed instructions scrupulously, provided the rationale was clearly explained to him. He never demanded attention from doctors but also never declined to undergo tests when prescribed. He was an epitome of courtesy, walking with the doctors to see them off till their cars.
On one occasion, when the Director of AIIMS and I visited him at his home to check on a sutured cut, Dr Singh noticed that there was no table near Dr Venugopal for the latter to place the cup of tea that an attender had brought in. The Prime Minister walked to an adjoining room and brought back a small table which he placed in front of his guest. I was astounded at that gesture of attentive and courteous hospitality from a person holding India's most important political office.
A challenging time came for our medical team when Dr Singh experienced episodes of chest pain in January 2009, a week before the Republic Day. He had earlier undergone coronary bypass surgery (CABG), performed in a British hospital in 1990, while he was serving on the South Commission in Geneva. He later underwent a coronary angioplasty at a Delhi hospital in February 2004. He now needed an urgent evaluation by coronary angiography. Though the Republic Day was just a few days away, he agreed to undergo the procedure at AIIMS in Delhi on January 21.
The angiogram revealed several blocks, including those of the two stents placed in 2004. The team of attending doctors, which included cardiologists and surgeons from AIIMS and some other hospitals, was divided in opinion as to whether the preferred procedure was coronary angioplasty with multiple stents in different arteries or coronary bypass surgery with arterial grafts. The former offered less risk during the initial procedure but carried the hazard of stent thrombosis over time. The latter carried the risks of repeat surgery in an elderly person but held the promise of better long-term results with the assurance that the Prime Minister could attend to his duties with confidence that his heart would not let him down.
The comparative risks and benefits of both options were explained by me to Dr Singh even as he lay on the table in the cardiac catheterisation laboratory where the angiogram was performed. He took just about thirty seconds to process the information before calmly telling me: "On the balance of probabilities, let us go in for surgery". I was amazed at his clarity of thought and the speed of processing the risks associated with each procedure to estimate probabilities. Thus spake the brilliant economist is what I think whenever I recall that episode.
From coronary angiography to surgery, Dr Singh wanted all details of his medical condition to be openly and accurately shared with the media without any camouflaging of facts. I thought it was very unusual for a politician actively facing close scrutiny in public life.
He chose to be operated at AIIMS, with Dr Ramakant Panda performing the surgery. Dr Panda was a gifted cardiac surgeon, trained initially at AIIMS and then at the Cleveland Clinic. He was working in Mumbai but his expertise in re-do coronary surgery made him the preferred choice, especially as he usually employed arterial grafts for all blocks and performed his meticulous surgery on a beating heart without using a cardio-pulmonary bypass pump.
Dr Singh underwent an eight-hour surgery on January 24. When the media asked Dr Panda why the surgery took so long, he replied memorably "When I am saving a life, I do not look at the clock."
When journalists challenged me as to why a surgical team from Mumbai was brought in to operate on Dr Singh at AIIMS, I replied using an analogy from cricket's Indian Premier League (IPL) - "this is not a contest of Mumbai Indians versus Delhi Daredevils. It is Team India batting for the Prime Minister."
Conversations with Dr Singh always provided an education on various aspects of India's development and global affairs. An aside here. I always felt that he was a more effective communicator while conversing with a group of college students than as a public speaker at a mass political gathering.
He had a deep interest in improving health services and launched the National Rural Health Mission. He also initiated the constitution of a high-level expert group to develop a framework for universal health coverage.
Dr Singh was an able and noble leader, highly learned yet humble, firm in convictions but gentle in manner. A scholar-statesman beyond compare. In the words of Shakespeare, 'His life was gentle; and the elements so mixed in him, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!'
(Dr K Srinath Reddy is a Cardiologist, epidemiologist and Distinguished Professor of Public Health, Public Health Foundation of India.)