Global honour for US-Indian doctor

New Delhi, October 22

Indian-American cardiologist Inder Anand has bagged the prestigious Heart Failure Society of America’s (HFSA) Lifetime Achievement Award for pioneering work in the field, including in areas of congestive heart failure and high altitude medicine and biology.

PGI connection

• Dr Inder Anand’s father Dr Santokh Singh Anand was one of the founders of the PGI, Chandigarh
• He bagged the Rhodes Scholarship in 1966
• Dr Anand joined PGI in 1976. He moved to the US in 1991

Anand graduated from an Indian Rhodes Scholar to America’s top rated cardiologist and has a deep connection with PGI, Chandigarh, where he taught for long years before returning to the US in 1990s. Anand’s illustrious father Dr Santokh Singh Anand was one of the founders of the PGI, Chandigarh.

Carrying forward his father’s legacy, Inder Anand bagged the Rhodes Scholarship in 1966 and got a D Phil in cardiovascular physiology from Oxford. There was no looking back since then.

Anand returned to India and served at the PGI starting 1976. In 1991, he relocated to Minneapolis as Professor of Medicine and Director, Heart Failure Programme, at the VA Medical Centre. He remained there until retirement in 2015.

It was in India where Anand developed a keen interest in heart failure and pursued high altitude medicine discovering two new syndromes in people living at higher reaches — infantile sub-acute mountain sickness in Tibet and sub-acute adult mountain sickness in Indian soldiers posted at altitudes of nearly 20,000 ft.

Dr Anand’s more recent works focus on biomarkers in heart failure. — TNS