A great friend of the cardiac surgical fraternity of Sri Lanka is no more
Dr. Ravi Perumal Pillai, a Sri Lankan-born cardiac surgeon, who practised in UK and Sri Lanka passed away after a brief illness on December 16.
Dr Pillai was a great friend of the cardiac surgical fraternity of Sri Lanka.
He was born on 01.04.1951 and after an initial education at Trinity College, Kandy subsequently studied at Comboni College, Khartoum and St. Edwards School, Oxford.
He studied medicine in the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London.
After qualifying as a doctor in April 1974, Ravi did his internship in Jaffna. He then served for a period as a lecturer in Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo.
Subsequently he returned to the UK to train as a surgeon obtaining both the Fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England and Edinburgh in 1979. Following further training in cardiothoracic surgery he received the Certificate of Higher Surgical Training in Cardiothoracic Surgery in 1987. His training was at some of the major London Hospitals including Royal Brompton and Harefield, National Heart, London Chest and St. George’s Hospitals. He was mentored by eminent surgeons such as Sir Magdi Yacoub, Sir Donald Ross and Chris Lincoln.
He then did a Fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. In September 1991 he was awarded MA-status from the University of Oxford.
Most of his working life (1989 to 2011) Ravi worked as a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, John Radcliffe Hospital, UK. During this period, he was also a Senior Clinical Lecturer attached to the University of Oxford.
During his tenure at Oxford, he was involved in many pioneering achievements, such as a fast tracking protocol for early extubation of patients following cardiac surgery and setting up a homograft heart valve bank. He was a member of the John Radcliffe Hospital Board and Chairman of the Cardiac Clinical Centre from 1991 to 1996. Dr. Pillai was responsible for the major expansion programme of the Cardiac Services Centre of the John Radcliffe Hospital. He was also a Director of Cardiocore Ltd.
Dr. Pillai performed both adult and paediatric cardiac surgeries. He was a master surgeon who would perform five to six open heart operations a day and still turn up smiling to perform a major emergency surgery at night. We young trainees were run off our feet trying to keep up with him. He maintained a cool and unflappable demeanour under extreme pressure.
Ravi was a prolific researcher with over 100 publications in international peer reviewed journals to his credit. He performed pioneering research into stentless heart valves. He has also contributed book chapters to two textbooks (Lung and Heart Lung Transplantation & The Oxford Textbook of Surgery, 1994). He also co-authored the book “Surgery for Ischaemic Heart Disease” with John Wright.
While at Oxford he taught undergraduate medical students at the University of Oxford as well as postgraduate trainees in cardiothoracic surgery. He was the regional advisor for cardiothoracic surgery for the Royal College of Surgeons from 2002 to 2012.
Dr. Pillai had a special fondness for the people and the land of his birth. He trained five Cardiothoracic surgeons from Sri Lanka including myself, all of whom returned home to serve Sri Lanka. He was also instrumental in helping other Sri Lankan postgraduate trainees in other specialties to obtain placements in Oxford.
While in Oxford, Dr. Pillai led several teams (some of which he funded himself) to perform complex adult and paediatric heart surgeries at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo and Sri Jayewardenepura General Hospital with his former students.
Dr. Pillai performed the first ever homograft (human heart valve) implants in Sri Lanka (as these valves were not available in Sri Lanka, he brought them from the Oxford Heart Valve Bank).
Dr. Pillai gave many invited lectures at the annual scientific sessions of the Sri Lanka Medical Association, College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Heart Association and the Jaffna Clinical Society.
For his services to the field of Cardiothoracic services in Sri Lanka, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka.
Following his retirement from the NHS, he returned to Sri Lanka to help set up cardiothoracic services in Jaffna. He set up the non-profit “Oxonian Heart Foundation” (www.oxonianhf. com) for this purpose.
His tireless endeavour paid off when Jaffna restarted heart surgery after a lapse of 28 years when he performed the first heart operation in a private hospital in Jaffna (Northern Central Hospital, Jaffna). Dr. Pillai performed the first ever CABG and Valve replacement operations ever done in Jaffna.
Dr. Pillai also worked tirelessly to re-establish the government heart surgery unit, which was closed in 1986. Due to his efforts, the cardiothoracic unit of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital was reopened in December 2017.
Dr. Pillai also taught undergraduate students at the Medical Faculty of Jaffna and the doctors of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital.
Ravi and his wife Shanti were close personal friends of both my wife and myself during the three happy years we spent at Oxford as well as the subsequent years. Both Ravi and Shanti adopted us to their family and treated us as younger siblings. We will always have fond memories of times spent with this wonderful man.
Dr. Ravi Pillai leaves behind his wife Dr. Shanti Jayewardene (an architect historian) and his two children Rajesh and Shahila.
He will be sorely missed by the cardiac surgery fraternity as well as his numerous friends in Sri Lanka and the UK.
Dr. Chandima Amarasena