New Delhi, Sep 28 (IANS): At 93, she still does the rounds of the hospital she founded. S.I. Padmavati, India's first woman cardiologist, says cardiology is a very demanding field that was keeping women away, but things are changing.
Padmavati, chief consultant in cardiology at National Heart Institute, said: "There is no routine, no fixed hours.. it is a very demanding field... so not many women choose to become cardiologists.
"But things are changing now, many women are coming forward as heart specialists," Padmavati told IANS in an interview.
According to 2010 figures from the American College of Cardiology, "women still account for less than 20 percent of all cardiologists in the US. A 2009 census carried out by the Royal College of Physicians in the UK in three territories revealed that a mere 90 of the 766 cardiologists were females, or in other words not more than 11. 75 percent.
The situation is not very different in India, though there is no compiled data available.
Padmavati says she never felt any sense of discrimination.
"All my male colleagues were very cooperative. In fact, I must say there is little discrimination in India. There was more antagonism against women in the West at the time. There it was tough even for a woman to get into a medical school," she said.
The veteran led the group of doctors that founded the National Heart Institute, and is the founder president of the All India Heart Foundation.
Born in Myanmar, Padmavati did her MBBS from Rangoon Medical College, followed by an FRCP from Royal College of Physicians, London and FRCPE from Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. She later shifted to the US.
She came to India only in 1953 and joined as a lecturer in Lady Hardinge Medical College, where she set up the cardiology clinic.
"When I joined Lady Hardinge, all women there were British. There was nothing in the cardiology department and we had to set it up. After that I also set up a cardiology department in GB Pant Hospital. We got Rs.5 lakh for setting up the cardiology department, today Rs.5 lakh is nothing," said Padmavati.