The Surgeon Who Gave Millions of Knees a Second Life: The Story of Dr. Ashok Rajgopal

On 30 September 1953, in Bengaluru, Karnataka, a boy named Ashok Rajgopal was born who would one day become one of the world’s most prolific orthopaedic surgeons. He graduated MBBS from the Armed Forces Medical College in Pune in 1974, earned his MS in Orthopaedics from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, and then travelled to the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom for his MCh. Later he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Returning to India, he specialised in joint replacement and arthroscopic surgery of the knee. Over a career spanning more than four decades he has performed over 35,000–40,000 total knee replacements and tens of thousands of arthroscopic procedures for sports injuries and ligament repairs—numbers that place him among the most experienced knee surgeons anywhere.

He has many firsts to his credit in India. In 1987 he performed the country’s first bilateral total knee replacement. In 2002 he introduced minimally invasive total knee replacement surgery and designed special instruments for the technique that are now used by surgeons around the world. He was the first to use patient-specific instrumentation for virtual knee replacement and the first to employ gender-specific knee implants designed for female patients. He also served on the international design team that created the PERSONA Knee system, an advanced implant used globally.

Dr. Rajgopal has worked at leading institutions including AIIMS, hospitals in the UK, Fortis, and for many years as Group Chairman of the Institute of Musculoskeletal Disorders and Orthopaedics at Medanta – The Medicity in Gurugram. His focus has always been precise technique, rapid recovery, and restoring patients to active lives.

In 2014 the Government of India conferred upon him the Padma Shri for his contributions to orthopaedic surgery. The same year he received the Dr. B.C. Roy Award. Other honours include the Knee Ratna Award from the Indian Medical Association and several lifetime achievement awards.

One evening after a long operating day, a young surgeon watching him finish yet another successful case asked, “Sir, after so many thousands of knees, does it still feel special?”

Dr. Ashok Rajgopal looked up from the notes and smiled.

“Every patient who walks into the clinic limping and walks out without pain is a new beginning,” he said. “The numbers are only statistics. What matters is the grandmother who can play with her grandchildren again, the sportsman who returns to the field, the person who gets their independence back. That is why we keep refining the technique and keep operating—because mobility is freedom, and freedom is life.”

And so the surgeon from Bengaluru who trained in the best institutions continues to restore movement and dignity to tens of thousands of people, proving that mastery of the knee can change entire lives, one precise, carefully planned operation at a time.