Padma Shri Dr. Jai Pal Singh

Padma Shri Awardee

Dr. Jai Pal Singh was born on 13 May 1930 at the Mhow cantonment town in Madhya Pradesh to Dr Yogendra Singh, then a doctor’s assistant with the British Army, and Kartari Devi.

Young Jai Pal Singh obtained his MBBS medical degree in 1952 and an MS in 1955 with academic honours from the Sarojini Naidu Medical College at Agra, the third oldest medical college in India. This was the same college from where his father had graduated a generation ago. Jai Pal was awarded the Seth Matrumal Benara Jain Golden Medal and Rai Saheb Dr. Lekh Raj Singh Silver Medal for Ophthalmology for standing 1st in the University. He was an all-rounder star as he was the sports captain of the college and member of the hockey, football and tennis teams besides being active in University theatre.

Dr. Jai Pal Singh married Ved Wati in 1958, 2nd of 6 children of Chaudhary Charan Singh, the 5th Prime Minister of India. After completing his post-graduate qualification in Surgery in 1955, Dr. Jai Pal Singh served for 35 years in Delhi’s public hospital system the Central Government Health Systems (CGHS). He was Senior Surgeon and Consultant at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and Safdarjung Hospital; Head Department of Surgery Safdarjang Hospital and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital; Post Graduate Supervisor, Teacher and Professor of Surgery, University College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; and Medical Superintendent & Head of Surgery, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. Dr. Jai Pal Singh was finally Director, Dean, Professor and Head, Department of Surgery at Medical College, Rohtak (now the Pt. B. D. Sharma PGIMS).

Dr. Singh was passionate man, attracted to perfection, with a warm and larger than life personality that lit up the room he entered. He was passionate about excellence in education, having seen the benefits in his own life and career. Endowed with a rare quality of social awareness, Dr. Jai Pal Singh was an eminent surgeon who carved for himself a prominent place as leader in the medical world in Delhi devoted to finding solutions for the health problems peculiar to our country. His last position was between 1989 and 1992 as Director of the only tertiary care and medical teaching facility in the state of Haryana at Rohtak. While there and for decades after, he was widely acknowledged to be an outstanding medical administrator with an all-consuming concern for the urban poor and the agriculturists who frequented this hospital. His commitment to rural people was remarkable – when he practiced privately between 1992 and 1995 in Delhi, he operated without fee on scores of the poor. During his career, thousands from rural areas from around Delhi come for succour in times of medical and personal distress and they never went away empty handed.

He taught undergraduate and post-graduate medical students in Delhi and conducted research on subjects of relevance to Indian society. He made many original contributions to surgical science which received national and international recognition. His work on childhood burns, hernia, surgical nutrition and new operation for prolapse of rectum received acclaim. His contributions on kidney stones and motility studies on large intestines were landmarks in Indian Surgery. His work on amoebic liver abscess was published in the American Journal of Surgery.

Dr. Jai Pal Singh trained in Paediatric Surgery under the Colombo Plan in 1968 at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London. He travelled to United Kingdom and United States of America on a WHO Fellowship to study the organization of Trauma Service, Accident and Emergency Departments. He was invited by Royal Australasian College of Surgeons to its scientific meeting held in Melbourne in 1984 to initiate discussion on ‘Large Bowel Cancer in India’. He attended and read papers at the 13th International Cancer Congress in Seattle, USA in 1982, and attended the second European Cancer Congress at Amsterdam, Holland in 1983. He was invited by the Society of Surgeons of Pakistan in 1989 for an International meeting where he read a paper on kidney stones. He was invited by International Gastroenterology Surgical Club to its meeting at Athens in 1990. Dr. Jai Pal Singh wrote a treatise on ‘Newer Aetriopathologoical aspects of Urinary Calculi and means of preventing their recurrence’, which secured him the Hari Om Ashram Prerit Dr. S. Rangachari Research Endowment Award by the ASI in 1986 at Agra. He published more than three score papers in indexed journals in India and in International Journals of repute.

Dr. Singh earned recognition for his work in surgery and had the honour of being appointed as Honorary Surgeon to two Presidents of India. He was conferred the Padma Shri in 1991 by the Government of India.

On 24th September 1997, Dr. Jai Pal Singh breathed his last. The Association of Surgeons of India started an Oration in the memory of this great surgeon in 1999.