In the coastal city of Visakhapatnam, where the Bay of Bengal whispered against the shore, a restless boy named Duvvur Nageshwar Reddy once failed Class X and nearly convinced his family he was destined for the garage rather than the operating theatre. Born on 18 March 1956 into a third-generation medical family—his grandfather a pathologist, his father one of India’s youngest professors of pathology—young Nageshwar was more inventor of mischief than scholar. He once set a garage ablaze experimenting with petrol and, legend has it, was even placed in a refrigerator by an older sibling who thought he needed cooling. Boarding school followed. “This boy will become a mechanic at best,” a relative reportedly sighed.

Yet something shifted. At Kurnool Medical College he found focus, earning his MBBS. Madras Medical College gave him an MD in General Medicine. Then, at the prestigious Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh, he completed his DM in Gastroenterology. Endoscopy—then a fledgling field in India—captured his imagination. “Why should patients endure major surgery when a thin tube and skilled hands can heal from within?” he asked colleagues. He specialised in therapeutic pancreatobiliary endoscopy and began pioneering techniques that would change lives.

After teaching stints at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences and Guntur Medical College, he took a bold leap in 1994. In Hyderabad he founded the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG)—first as a modest speciality clinic, later growing into the world’s largest dedicated gastroenterology hospital and an 800-bed super-speciality centre. Under his leadership AIG became the first Indian institution recognised as a Centre of Excellence by the World Endoscopy Organization. He introduced day-care endoscopic units, mobile endoscopy vans that carried life-saving diagnostics into rural villages, and innovations such as the NAGI stent and early adoption of procedures like peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) and natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES).

“Patients should not have to travel halfway across the country for advanced care,” he told his team. “We will bring the world standard here—and then take it further.” Over the decades he published more than a thousand peer-reviewed papers, contributed to dozens of textbooks, trained thousands of endoscopists, and served as President of the World Endoscopy Organization. International honours poured in: the Master Endoscopist Award, the Rudolf V. Schindler Award (often called the Nobel of endoscopy), multiple American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Crystal Awards—he is the only endoscopist in the world to receive five of them.

National recognition matched the global stage. The Dr. B.C. Roy Award came in 1995. The Padma Shri followed in 2002, the Padma Bhushan in 2016. In 2025 he received the Padma Vibhushan, becoming the first Indian medical doctor to earn all three of the nation’s highest civilian honours. Standing before the President, he said with characteristic humility, “This is not just a personal milestone. It is a celebration of Indian medicine’s spirit and potential. Together we can create a healthier, stronger India.”

Married to dermatologist Carol Ann Reddy, whom he met during his Madras days, he remains a teacher at heart and a relentless innovator. From a boy who once failed exams to a physician who placed India on the global map of gastroenterology, Duvvur Nageshwar Reddy’s journey reminds us that second chances, when seized with vision and persistence, can transform not only one life but the health of millions.