The Pioneer Who Built Vascular Surgery in the South: The Story of Dr. Thenumgal Poulose Jacob

On 12 June 1934, in Aluva, Kerala, Thenumgal Poulose Jacob was born into a Malayali family, the son of Thenumgal Poulose and Mariam. After early studies at UC College he moved to Chennai, graduated in medicine from Stanley Medical College, and earned his MS in surgery from the same institution. What began as a solid surgical training would grow into a life’s work that gave South India its first dedicated department of vascular surgery.

He joined government service at Madras Medical College and, in 1978, established the Department of Vascular Surgery there—the first of its kind in the institution. As its founding Head he served until his superannuation in 1993, training young surgeons, building clinical services, and treating patients with diseases of the blood vessels that had often been managed only in a limited way before. After retirement he continued private practice at the T.P. Jacob Clinic in Royapuram, Chennai, and worked as a consultant vascular surgeon at MV Hospitals for Diabetes, remaining available to patients who needed specialised care.

In 2014 the Government of India conferred upon him the Padma Shri for his contributions to medical science, recognising decades of quiet pioneering work that helped establish vascular surgery as a recognised specialty in the region. He was married to Esther; the couple had a daughter, Siji, an academic, and a son, Hasum, an engineer. Dr. Jacob passed away in Chennai on 22 November 2024 at the age of ninety.

One afternoon years earlier, after a long operating list, a young colleague asked him, “Sir, why did you choose to create an entire department when most surgeons simply worked within general surgery?”

Dr. Thenumgal Poulose Jacob answered with the calm of a man who had spent a lifetime opening blocked pathways so blood—and life—could flow again.

“Blood vessels carry life to every part of the body,” he said. “When they are diseased, the patient suffers in silence until it is almost too late. If we can give this work its own space, its own trained hands and its own careful attention, more people will walk without pain and live without the fear of losing a limb. That is why the department had to exist. The rest is only daily work.”

And so the surgeon from Aluva who founded vascular surgery at Madras Medical College, who trained generations of specialists, and who continued to serve patients in Chennai long after official retirement, is remembered as a quiet builder—one who opened a new pathway in Indian medicine so that countless others could keep walking.