In the city of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, on 15 March 1963, a boy named Praveen Chandra was born into a family where medicine already ran in the blood. His father, a doctor, quietly planted the seed of healing. Young Praveen studied at Colvin Taluqdar College in Lucknow and then entered the historic halls of King George’s Medical College, where he earned his MBBS, MD in Medicine and finally his DM in Cardiology.

He began his career at Escorts Heart Institute in New Delhi, later becoming Director of the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory and Acute MI Services at Max Healthcare. In 2010 he joined Medanta – The Medicity in Gurugram as Chairman of Interventional Cardiology, a position he continues to hold with distinction.

Where open-heart surgery once seemed the only answer, Praveen Chandra chose a gentler path. He performed India’s first percutaneous aortic valve implantation without surgery and the country’s first percutaneous mitral valve repair. He introduced advanced tools—AngioJet thrombectomy, fractional flow reserve, bioabsorbable stents—and started Asia’s first percutaneous myocardial laser revascularisation programme. Year after year he has performed thousands of angioplasties and complex interventions, giving patients second chances without the long scars of traditional surgery.

A middle-aged man, recently recovered from a critical procedure, once asked him, “Doctor, how do you stay so calm when a heart is failing in front of you?”

Praveen smiled. “Because every heartbeat is a life still fighting. Our job is simply to clear the way so that fight can continue.”

He has published hundreds of papers, trained generations of cardiologists, and spoken at major international conferences. In 1998 he received national recognition for excellence in angioplasty. In 2016 the President of India conferred upon him the Padma Shri for his outstanding contributions to medicine.

Today, as one of India’s foremost interventional cardiologists, Dr. Praveen Chandra continues to push the boundaries of what is possible inside the heart. From a doctor’s son in Gorakhpur to a pioneer who brought keyhole heart care to the nation, his journey remains a living reminder that the most powerful interventions are often the ones that leave the smallest marks.