Interview with Prof. Dr. Navin C. Nanda

Prof. Dr. Navin Nanda has dedicated his life to develop, to promote, to disseminate and most important of all, to teach knowledge. He is truly an honourable citizen of the world, and he is more of a brother to us than a colleague. I had the privilege to get to know him when I was working with him in Rochester, New York in 1982. We had to opportunity to meet again during his visits to Mardin and Şanlıurfa, Turkey. Although he is 10 years older than me, he is more active and productive. We would like to thank Prof. Dr. Navin Nanda and Dr. Gültekin Karakuş for this interview.
Bilgin Timuralp Editor-in-Chief Eskişehir, Turkey
Interview
Dr. Gültekin Karakuş: Dear Professor Nanda, first of all, I would like to thank you for accepting our request of interview.
Prof. Dr. Navin Nanda: You are welcome.
I would like to start with birth which is the beginning of the journey of each of our lives, where and when were you born?
I was born in Kenya where my father was a practic-ing physician, Both my parents were from India.
How long did you stay in Kenya?
Till the end of World War 2, I stayed in Kenya. I completed the University of Cambridge School Certificate examination with distinctions in English Language, History, Mathematics and Science, I was planning to travel to England for further studies. at Oxford University on a scholarship but my mother insisted I go to India instead so as to become familiar with my roots in my country of origin. Also, she was not keen I marry an English woman which would be a strong possibility if I went to England. She wanted an Indian daughter-in-law, which she thought would be most likely if I went to India.
So, your adventure of medical education started like this.
Yes, I went to India and began my science studies at Eliphinstone College, Bombay and my medical studies at Seth G.S Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital, Bombay University. After medical graduation, I did internship in medicine (6 months) and surgery (6 months) at King George VI Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya. The attendings were all from England and interestingly I worked under some who had been trained by my father in some procedures such as cataract surgery. After completing my internship, at my father’s request I tried to take over his flourishing medical practice but decided instead to go back to Bombay for completing postgraduate studies in Medicine and Cardiology at the same college and hospital where I had graduated from. By this time, my father had retired and both he and my mother went to India and settled in Jaipur where he began doing charitable medical work. Do you remember your first published paper? It was a study about hyperglycemia after myocardial infarc-tion and its relationship to diabetes mellitus. It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967 and it received editorial praise as an “important contribution” and “the first thorough study of an Asiatic population”. My M.D. postgraduate thesis was “Myocardial Infarction in Young Adults”. I had no difficulty in collecting several patients under the age of 40 years with acute myocardial infarction many of whom were thin and had normal serum cholesterol levels. At that time cholesterol