Dr. Sivaramakrishna Iyer Padmavati (S.I. Padmavati or S. Padmavati; 20 June 1917 – 29 August 2020) was India’s first woman cardiologist and one of the true pioneers of modern cardiology in the country. She received the Padma Bhushan in 1967 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1992.

Born on 20 June 1917 in Magwe, Burma (now Myanmar), she grew up in a well-educated family. She graduated with an MBBS (magna cum laude) from Rangoon Medical College. When the Japanese invaded Burma during the Second World War, her family moved to India. After the war she went to the United Kingdom, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and of Edinburgh. She later trained in cardiology at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Medical School in the United States under legendary figures such as Paul Dudley White and Helen Taussig.

Returning to India in the early 1950s, she joined Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi as a lecturer and soon established the first cardiac clinic and cardiac catheterisation laboratory in North India. In 1967 she moved to Maulana Azad Medical College and G.B. Pant Hospital, where she founded the first full-fledged cardiology department in an Indian medical school and introduced the DM (Doctor of Medicine) course in Cardiology — the first of its kind in the country.

In 1962 she founded the All India Heart Foundation. Under its banner she established the National Heart Institute (NHI) in Delhi in 1981, which became a centre for tertiary cardiac care, research and training, and later collaborated with the World Health Organization on preventive cardiology.

Even into her late nineties she continued to work long hours at the National Heart Institute. Colleagues recalled her extraordinary clinical skill. “In the days before modern machines,” one of them said, “she could arrive at the correct diagnosis just by listening carefully to the patient and examining the heart.”

Dr. Padmavati remained active well past the age of 100 and was widely regarded as the “Godmother of Cardiology in India.” She passed away on 29 August 2020 at the age of 103, leaving behind a legacy of institutional building, clinical excellence and the opening of doors for women in a field that had been almost entirely male.