In the winter of 2026, when the Republic Day honours were announced and later conferred by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan, fifteen names from the world of medicine and healing stood out among the 131 Padma Awards. Two received the Padma Bhushan. Thirteen received the Padma Shri. Together they formed a living map of Indian medicine: the neonatologist who built Asia’s first human milk bank, the radiation oncologist who carried Indian precision across the Atlantic, the 99-year-old physician who had once been Tamil Nadu’s health minister, the Ayurvedic surgeon who still believed a thread and an ear-piercing could change a life, the couple who walked into the forests of Bastar with nothing but herbs and conviction.

This is not a list. This is a book of lives.

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The Gastroenterologist Who Never Stopped Teaching

Dr. Kallipatti Ramasamy Palaniswamy of Chennai received the Padma Bhushan after already holding the Padma Shri since 2007. Four decades earlier a young man from a small town had walked into JJM Medical College in Davangere, finished his MBBS in 1972, then MD and DM in Gastroenterology while still teaching. He built the Department of Gastroenterology at Stanley Medical College when such departments were rare. Later he became a senior consultant at Apollo Hospitals and president of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology.

One evening a former student, now a consultant himself, sat across from him in the hospital cafeteria.

“Sir, why do you still take the morning rounds with the junior residents?” the younger doctor asked. “You have already done everything.”

Palaniswamy smiled, stirring his coffee. “Because the first time I saw a bleeding varicean, I was terrified. Someone stood behind me and said, ‘Slowly. The scope is an extension of your eye, not a weapon.’ That someone is why I am here. You will be that someone for someone else.”

He never raised his voice. Patients remembered the quiet man who explained cirrhosis as if he were telling a story about a river that had forgotten how to flow. When the Padma Bhushan citation was read, colleagues said the award had simply caught up with a life that had already been given away.

The Oncologist Who Took Indian Light Across the Ocean

Dr. Nori Dattatreyudu, the Indian-American radiation oncologist, received the Padma Bhushan for work done far from Kurnool Medical College where he first studied. He pioneered high-dose-rate brachytherapy and remote after-loading techniques that allowed tumours of the cervix, chest, head and neck to be treated with millimetre precision. America named him among its top doctors; India remembered the boy from Andhra who never quite left.

In a New York consultation room a woman whose cancer had returned sat opposite him.

“Doctor, they said there is nothing more.”

Nori looked at the scans, then at her. “There is always something more. We will place the radiation exactly where the disease lives and spare the rest of you. You will walk your daughter to school again.”

He had received the Padma Shri in 2015. The Bhushan in 2026 felt, he later told a colleague, like the country tapping him on the shoulder and saying, “We saw you from here too.”

The Woman Who Gave Milk When There Was None

Dr. Armida Fernandez, Goan by origin, neonatologist by vocation, established Asia’s first human milk bank at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital in Mumbai in 1989. Three to five thousand newborns a year received donated milk because one doctor refused to accept that a premature baby should die for lack of a mother’s breast.

A young mother whose own milk had not come sat weeping beside an incubator.

“I have nothing to give him,” she said.

Fernandez placed a small bottle of pasteurised donor milk in her hands. “You have everything. You sat here all night. That is already love. This milk will keep him alive until yours arrives. And if it does not, we will still keep him.”

She became dean, headed neonatology, and worked with UNICEF on the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. The Padma Shri in 2026 was, she said, not for her but for every mother who had pumped milk at 3 a.m. so another woman’s child could live.

The Surgeon Who Opened the Body Without Opening It

Dr. Guduru Venkat Rao of Hyderabad, surgical gastroenterologist at AIG Hospitals, performed more than 12,000 surgeries and 16,000 endoscopies. He introduced natural-orifice techniques, including what colleagues called the world’s first transoral endoscopic appendectomy. Patients left with almost no scars.

A villager from Warangal, after his procedure, looked at the tiny marks and asked, “Doctor, you went inside through my mouth?”

Rao laughed. “Yes. The old way was to cut a door. Now we use the windows the body already has.”

The Padma Shri recognised both the daring and the humility of a man who still operated as if every patient were family.

The Minister Who Never Stopped Being a Doctor

Shri H. V. Hande of Tamil Nadu was 99 when he received the Padma Shri. Kilpauk Medical College, class of 1950. He built Hande Hospital so the poor would not have to choose between medicine and food. As Health Minister from 1980 to 1986 he strengthened primary care, fought leprosy, and oversaw the reporting of India’s first HIV case. He received the Dr B.C. Roy Award in 1985.

A journalist once asked him, “At your age, why still see patients?”

Hande replied, “Because the stethoscope still fits. And because a minister can make policy, but only a doctor can hold a hand when the policy fails.”

The award felt less like an honour than a long-delayed thank-you note from the state he had served.

The Ayurvedic Surgeon Who Believed in Threads and Ears

Dr. Kewal Krishan Thakral of Uttar Pradesh, born in 1938 in what became Pakistan, rebuilt his life after Partition and spent six decades in Shalya-Shalakya. He popularised Kshar Sutra for fistula-in-ano and the Karna Vedhan technique for bronchial asthma. He served as Dean at Kanpur University and Director of Ayurveda services in Uttar Pradesh. He organised 71 camps.

After receiving the Padma Shri he told reporters, “I dedicate this to my teachers, my students and my patients. This honour belongs to Ayurveda and to everyone who still believes Indian surgical methods have a place.”

A patient who had suffered for years with fistula said to him in the clinic, “They told me only modern surgery. You used a thread.”

Thakral answered, “The thread is older than both of us. Sometimes the oldest things are still the kindest.”

The Keeper of Himalayan Medicine

Dr. Padma Gurmet of Ladakh became founding Director of the National Institute of Sowa-Rigpa in Leh. She created the Trans-Himalayan Herbal Garden so that the plants of the high desert would not vanish. She fought for official recognition of Sowa-Rigpa as an Indian system of medicine.

In the thin air of Leh a young practitioner asked her, “Will our medicine survive the modern hospitals?”

Gurmet looked at the mountains. “The mountains have survived longer than any hospital. Our work is to make sure the knowledge does not die with the last amchi.”

The Padma Shri was recognition that a system born in the Himalayas now belonged to the nation.

The Cancer Doctor Who Built a Foundation for the Poor

Shri Palkonda Vijay Anand Reddy of Hyderabad, radiation oncologist at Apollo Cancer Hospital and former president of the Association of Radiation Oncologists of India, founded the CURE Foundation in 2003 so that underprivileged patients could receive treatment.

A father whose child had retinoblastoma sat in his office.

“We have sold the land,” the father said.

Reddy replied, “Keep the land. The foundation will stand between your child and the bill.”

The Padma Shri honoured both the clinician and the man who refused to let poverty decide who lived.

The Professor Who Taught Machines to See the Oesophagus

Dr. Prateek Sharma, Indian-American gastroenterologist at the University of Kansas, president of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, became a global voice on Barrett’s oesophagus, GERD and artificial intelligence in endoscopy. Over 400 publications.

When a fellow asked why he still flew back to India for conferences, Sharma said, “Because the first patient I ever scoped was in Baroda. Every algorithm I write still has that patient’s face in it.”

The Padma Shri brought the boy from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda full circle.

The Veterinarian Who Healed Animals with Herbs So Farmers Could Live

Dr. Punniamurthy Natesan of Tamil Nadu spent four decades turning ethno-veterinary knowledge into scientific protocols. He reduced antibiotic residues in milk and lowered treatment costs for livestock.

A farmer whose cow had recovered without expensive injections told him, “Doctor, you saved my animal and my children’s school fees.”

Natesan answered, “The plants were already here. I only listened to the old women who knew them.”

The Padma Shri recognised that animal health is human health in rural India.

The Pulmonologist Who Fought Tuberculosis for Fifty Years

Prof. Rajendra Prasad of King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, treated more than five lakh patients, established DOTS centres, introduced video bronchoscopy in 1999 and Uttar Pradesh’s first sleep laboratory in 2006. He received the Dr B.C. Roy Award.

A young resident once complained that TB work was thankless.

Prasad said, “When a patient who could not breathe walks out of the ward, that is the only thanks you need. The rest is paperwork.”

The Padma Shri was the nation’s paperwork catching up.

The Couple Who Walked Into the Forest

Ramchandra Godbole and Suneeta Godbole of Chhattisgarh spent 37 years in Bastar and Abujhmad, places without roads or electricity, treating tribal communities with Ayurveda, fighting malnutrition, running health awareness through their Trust for Health.

One night a feverish child was brought to their hut.

Suneeta prepared the decoction while Ramchandra held the father’s hand. “We cannot promise miracles,” he said. “We can only stay.”

The Padma Shri (counted as one award for the duo) honoured two lives that had chosen the hardest geography in India.

The Cardiologist of the East

Dr. Saroj Mandal of Kolkata, interventional cardiologist at IPGMER & SSKM Hospital, brought angioplasty, stenting and pacemaker implantation to patients who would otherwise have gone untreated.

A middle-aged clerk after a successful stenting asked, “Doctor, will I be able to work again?”

Mandal replied, “You will work. And you will walk your daughter to the temple. That is the point of the wire I put in your heart.”

The Padma Shri recognised a career spent expanding access in eastern India.

The Man Who Gave Kala-Azar an Oral Medicine and a Single Dose

Prof. Shyam Sundar of Banaras Hindu University spent four decades on visceral leishmaniasis. He helped develop miltefosine, the first effective oral drug, and the single-dose liposomal amphotericin B regimen that WHO endorsed and India adopted. He validated the rK-39 rapid diagnostic strip that turned weeks of waiting into minutes.

In a village near Muzaffarpur a mother whose child had recovered said, “They used to take them to the city and they did not come back. You came here.”

Sundar answered quietly, “The parasite does not care about cities. Neither should we.”

Born in 1953, MBBS and MD from BHU, he became one of the world’s leading voices on a neglected tropical disease that had killed the poorest. The Padma Shri in 2026 felt, colleagues said, like justice delayed but not denied.

The Haematologist Who Made Haemophilia Visible

Dr. Suresh Hanagavadi of Karnataka dedicated his life to haematology and advocacy for haemophilia patients, fighting for treatment, awareness and dignity in a condition many families hid.

A young man with haemophilia told him after years of joint damage, “Doctor, people think we are cursed.”

Hanagavadi replied, “You are not cursed. You are underserved. That is a different disease, and it is the one I treat.”

The Padma Shri honoured both the scientist and the advocate.

These fifteen lives, announced on the eve of Republic Day 2026 and conferred through the year, form a single story: that Indian medicine is not one tradition but many rivers—modern oncology and neonatology, Ayurveda and Sowa-Rigpa, public-health administration and forest-floor compassion—flowing toward the same ocean of service. The Padma Awards did not create these doctors. They merely named what the country had already known: that healing, when done without calculation of reward, eventually finds its own recognition.

In a book about Indian doctors this chapter sits near the end, not because the story is finished, but because these fifteen men and women remind us that the next generation is already watching, already asking the same quiet question that every one of them once asked: “Who will stand behind me when I am terrified?” And then they become the ones who stand.