K. K. Talwar

Kewal Kishan Talwar (born 30 April 1946) is an Indian cardiologist, medical academic and writer, and a former chairman of the Medical Council of India. He is a former director of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) and is reported to have performed the first implantation of Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy in South Asia. He is also credited with the introduction of Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy in India. He is a recipient of several honours including B. C. Roy Award, the highest Indian award in the medical category. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 2006, for his contributions to medicine. Presently Dr. Talwar is working in PSRI Hospital Sheikh Sarai, New Delhi as the chairman of Cardiac Sciences

Biography Talwar, born on 30 April 1946 at Payal, a small town in Ludhiana district in the north Indian state of Punjab, did his early education in his home town and the neighboring city of Jalandhar and graduated in medicine (MBBS) from Punjabi University, Patiala in 1969. His career started at his alma mater, PGIMER, in December 1977, as a member of faculty where he worked for three years before moving to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, as an assistant professor of cardiology in 1980. During the next twenty four years he worked at AIIMS, he became the professor in 1992 and the head of the department of cardiology in 2002. After leaving AIIMS in 2004, he returned to PGIMER as the director, professor and head of the department of cardiology and stayed there till his superannuation in 2011.

Talwar is associated with several government initiatives and is a member of Punjab Governance Reforms Commission (PGRC) and its Task Group on Health and Medical Education. He is a former chairman of the Medical Council of India and the incumbent chair of the Board of Governors of the National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and Research, Chandigarh (NITTTR). He also chairs the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali (IISER) and is an adviser to the Government of Punjab on Health and Medical Education as well as a Visitor Nominee to Banaras Hindu University.

Legacy After introducing the endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) procedure at AIIMS in 1986, he deployed the technique in the evaluation and diagnosis of tropical heart muscle diseases, and his findings on the occurrence of inflammatory myocarditis in Takayasu's arteritis patients have been documented, the first instance the topic was published in medical literature. The introduction of multisite pacing system for managing heart failure and pioneering efforts in electrophysiology and cardiac pacemakers are some of his other notable contributions. His work on Cardiac arrhythmia helped develop it as a specialty in India and he was associated with Heart transplant program at AIIMS. His work has been documented by way of several publications which include 240 articles and 270 abstracts, published in various peer-reviewed medical journals. and the Government of India included him in the Republic Day Honours list of 2006 for the civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan. is an elected fellow of NAMS (1993) and the Indian National Science Academy (2005). He is also a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences. Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences had conferred the honoris causa degree of Doctor of Science (DSc) on him. and Dr. G.N.Sen Oration (2013) are some of the notable ones.