The earliest cardiothoracic and vascular surgery department in Gujarat was established at Sheth Vadilal Sarabhai General Hospital in early 1960’s by Dr S.A. Trivedi who had then returned from London having been trained at The Royal College of Surgeons by stalwarts of those times like Lord Russel Brock and Mr Oswald Tubbs.

Dr Trivedi mentored Dr Dinkar Yajnik and Dr Sudhanshu Bhattacharyya. While Dr Bhattacharyya soon left for Bombay, Dr Yajnik continued to work at Sheth Vadilal Hospital till he retired.

The department of cardiothoracic surgery at Sheth Vadilal Hospital regularly performed pulmonary surgery, oesophageal surgery, closed mitral valvotomy, surgery for patent ductus arteriosus, peripheral vascular surgery, surgery for blunt and penetrating chest injuries, spleno-renal shunts and often, intracardiac repair using surface hypothermia and inflow occlusion. Several generations of general surgery residents got their initial exposure to cardiothoracic and vascular surgery in this department and many of these residents went on to become cardiothoracic and vascular surgeons later in their life.

At the same time, cardiothoracic surgery departments was also active at BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad where Dr PN Vyas did pioneering work and subsequently doctor Dhiren Goradia and Dr JC Panchal continued the work at the department.

In Vadodara, cardiothoracic surgery department was started and run by Dr VC Patel and doctor BS Patra at SSG Government Hospital.

Modern Cardiac surgery with the use of cardiopulmonary bypass was started for the first time in Gujarat in 1987 at Sheth VS Hospital. A new department of cardiothoracic and  vascular surgery was started in the civil hospital campus (where the first cardiac Cath lab was established earlier by Dr Nathubhai H. Patel) Ahmedabad, at Institute of Cardiology under the leadership of  then director Dr Thakorbhai K. Patel in 1987. That Institute acquired open heart surgery facilities in 1989. In 1993, the first coronary artery bypass graft surgery program and coronary angioplasty was simultaneously started for the first time in Gujarat. At that institute, CABG surgery became a regular operation, done in large numbers. In 1994, Mr UN Mehta got associated with that Institute and Government of Gujarat gave autonomy to that Institute.

The first non-government cardiothoracic and vascular surgery departments were started in trust-run hospitals, Rajasthan Hospitals and Jivraj Mehta Hospital in 1986-87. From the year 1996 onward, Rajasthan Hospital became a very active cardiac surgery centre with a large number of adult cardiac surgery, both valvular and coronary cases done in large numbers.

There were also private hospitals owned by cardiothoracic surgeons and these were the hospitals of Dr Trivedi, Dr Yagnik, Dr Tushar Shah and doctor Vinod Agrawal.

Gujarat got its first corporate cardiology and cardiothoracic and vascular surgery hospital in the year 2000 when Krishna Heart Institute was started. In 2002, Gujarat got two more corporate hospitals which were multi-speciality hospitals. These were SAL Hospital and Sterling Hospital.

Till 2003 only 4 cardiac surgery set ups were there in Ahmedabad and Gujarat.

Competition with cardiologists was growing. They too were developing their cathlab skills and were getting aggressive with percutaneous  coronary interventions and balloon mitral valvotomies.  Hence, we thought that it would be in the larger interest of the fraternity to meet under the banner of state cardiac surgeons.