STEPS TO SUCCESS
"There are no shortcuts in life"

Few people have the will power to endure personal discomfort to do service to humankind.  Chief Cardiovascular Surgeon and Executive Director, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRC), Dr Naresh Trehan, says when he was on call for seven years in New York, he had to sacrifice sleep.

Credited with 44,000 surgeries, Trehan was attracted to matters of the heart while studying in the Department of Surgery, New York University, in 1969-70. He wanted to make a difference in the lives of people, much like his gynaecologist mother, the late Devi Trehan, and his father, Dr H.S. Trehan, an ENT Surgeon who gave up practice at the age of 91 last year.

Much against his father’s wishes, he did his MBBS from King George’s Medical College, Lucknow, and further studies in the USA.  He recalls: "Nobody was really practising heart surgery in India then. In New York, I found that cardiac surgery was an emerging speciality. It required a lot of hard work. Coronary bypass surgery was invented there in front of my eyes.’’
Trehan returned to India in 1988 to set up the Escorts Heart Institute. Counting his blessings, he says it’s a boon to be ambidextrous. "I can use both my hands equally well. I was the President of the Aero Modelling Society at Modern School and was very good at making planes out of balsam wood. Now I use my skills on human beings.’’
  The personal surgeon to the President of India, his day is packed. He begins work at 7 am and performs 14-16 surgeries everyday. He believes that there is no shortcut to success and attributes his rise to good training coupled with a lot of hard work.

To him, cardiac surgery is one of the best professions. His message to aspiring cardiac surgeons: "Your entire focus should be on curing the disease. The profession involves a lot of ethics, hard work and sincerity.’’

— Tripti Nath