Appreciations
View(s):A great friend of the cardiac surgical fraternity of Sri Lanka is no more
Dr. Ravi Perumal Pillai
Dr. Ravi Perumal Pillai, a Sri Lankan-born cardiac surgeon, who practised in UK and Sri Lanka passed away after a brief illness on December 16.
Dr Pillai was a great friend of the cardiac surgical fraternity of Sri Lanka.
He was born on 01.04.1951 and after an initial education at Trinity College, Kandy subsequently studied at Comboni College, Khartoum and St. Edwards School, Oxford.
He studied medicine in the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London.
After qualifying as a doctor in April 1974, Ravi did his internship in Jaffna. He then served for a period as a lecturer in Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo.
Subsequently he returned to the UK to train as a surgeon obtaining both the Fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England and Edinburgh in 1979. Following further training in cardiothoracic surgery he received the Certificate of Higher Surgical Training in Cardiothoracic Surgery in 1987. His training was at some of the major London Hospitals including Royal Brompton and Harefield, National Heart, London Chest and St. George’s Hospitals. He was mentored by eminent surgeons such as Sir Magdi Yacoub, Sir Donald Ross and Chris Lincoln.
He then did a Fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. In September 1991 he was awarded MA-status from the University of Oxford.
Most of his working life (1989 to 2011) Ravi worked as a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, John Radcliffe Hospital, UK. During this period, he was also a Senior Clinical Lecturer attached to the University of Oxford.
During his tenure at Oxford, he was involved in many pioneering achievements, such as a fast tracking protocol for early extubation of patients following cardiac surgery and setting up a homograft heart valve bank. He was a member of the John Radcliffe Hospital Board and Chairman of the Cardiac Clinical Centre from 1991 to 1996. Dr. Pillai was responsible for the major expansion programme of the Cardiac Services Centre of the John Radcliffe Hospital. He was also a Director of Cardiocore Ltd.
Dr. Pillai performed both adult and paediatric cardiac surgeries. He was a master surgeon who would perform five to six open heart operations a day and still turn up smiling to perform a major emergency surgery at night. We young trainees were run off our feet trying to keep up with him. He maintained a cool and unflappable demeanour under extreme pressure.
Ravi was a prolific researcher with over 100 publications in international peer reviewed journals to his credit. He performed pioneering research into stentless heart valves. He has also contributed book chapters to two textbooks (Lung and Heart Lung Transplantation & The Oxford Textbook of Surgery, 1994). He also co-authored the book “Surgery for Ischaemic Heart Disease” with John Wright.
While at Oxford he taught undergraduate medical students at the University of Oxford as well as postgraduate trainees in cardiothoracic surgery. He was the regional advisor for cardiothoracic surgery for the Royal College of Surgeons from 2002 to 2012.
Dr. Pillai had a special fondness for the people and the land of his birth. He trained five Cardiothoracic surgeons from Sri Lanka including myself, all of whom returned home to serve Sri Lanka. He was also instrumental in helping other Sri Lankan postgraduate trainees in other specialties to obtain placements in Oxford.
While in Oxford, Dr. Pillai led several teams (some of which he funded himself) to perform complex adult and paediatric heart surgeries at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo and Sri Jayewardenepura General Hospital with his former students.
Dr. Pillai performed the first ever homograft (human heart valve) implants in Sri Lanka (as these valves were not available in Sri Lanka, he brought them from the Oxford Heart Valve Bank).
Dr. Pillai gave many invited lectures at the annual scientific sessions of the Sri Lanka Medical Association, College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Heart Association and the Jaffna Clinical Society.
For his services to the field of Cardiothoracic services in Sri Lanka, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka.
Following his retirement from the NHS, he returned to Sri Lanka to help set up cardiothoracic services in Jaffna. He set up the non-profit “Oxonian Heart Foundation” (www.oxonianhf.com) for this purpose.
His tireless endeavour paid off when Jaffna restarted heart surgery after a lapse of 28 years when he performed the first heart operation in a private hospital in Jaffna (Northern Central Hospital, Jaffna). Dr. Pillai performed the first ever CABG and Valve replacement operations ever done in Jaffna.
Dr. Pillai also worked tirelessly to re-establish the government heart surgery unit, which was closed in 1986. Due to his efforts, the cardiothoracic unit of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital was re-opened in December 2017.
Dr. Pillai also taught undergraduate students at the Medical Faculty of Jaffna and the doctors of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital.
Ravi and his wife Shanti were close personal friends of both my wife and myself during the three happy years we spent at Oxford as well as the subsequent years. Both Ravi and Shanti adopted us to their family and treated us as younger siblings. We will always have fond memories of times spent with this wonderful man.
Dr. Ravi Pillai leaves behind his wife Dr. Shanti Jayewardene (an architect historian) and his two children Rajesh and Shahila.
He will be sorely missed by the cardiac surgery fraternity as well as his numerous friends in Sri Lanka and the UK.
Dr. Chandima Amarasena
Treasured memories of my mama with the boyish grin
Cyril Anthony Fernando
Cyril Uncle, fondly addressed as “Cyril mama” was my mother Callista’s youngest brother. The earliest memories of him I have, take me back to the beautiful tea estates of Sri Lanka in the early sixties. I grew up in an upper middleclass family with six siblings in not so big a house in Maharagama. He sure was the king in the eyes of a small girl. The luxurious old colonial bungalows with flowers over the fireplace, tea served with freshly baked muffins or cookies in the little summer house; attended by a very courteous butler and the beautifully maintained lawns edged by flowers of all kinds, contributed to the regal touch. The tub baths and the puddings were surely the icing on the cake. I loved those holidays and will treasure forever the times we spent with Cyril mama then.
The next recollection is the times we have spent in our grandmother’s coconut estate during our school holidays. Cyril mama would have come to spend the weekend with his mom (my grandmom). These holidays were in total contrast to the ones in the tea estates. He would be very comfortable in his “sarama” and would want the “amme” in the kitchen to make Kaju curry and other specialties of the “Katana house”. We kids of course loved when he came around because then our grandma’s supervision of us relaxed a bit and rules were bent and the food quality surely climbed up a few notches. In those days men of the house had a special place.
Cyril mama was a good 15 years older than I. He was an uncle we looked up to, whose stories we listened to with awe, but got pulled up, if we did something wrong. Those were the days when kids were kids and adults were adults. We were allowed in their company only at meal times and prayer times.
I’m not quite sure when the gap in our relationship bridged and he became an uncle who was close to me and my husband Tommy. I guess it had something to do with his marriage to Marie aunty and the warmth that she brought in to the family. I still remember with gratitude how both of them were a great source of strength and support when my father passed away suddenly. He and Marie aunty were always there when we needed family support. My husband Tommy is an Indian and it was in Cyril mama’s house that we had an informal engagement when Tommy came to meet the family in the absence of my father. Cyril mama very graciously hosted my in-laws in their beautiful home in Colombo when they came from Bombay for my wedding which was held in Sri Lanka. He and Marie aunty were the first family members to visit Tommy and me in our tea estate bungalow in South India (yes, my husband was a tea planter and my childhood dreams inspired by Cyril mama were fulfilled). Tommy and Cyril mama got on famously and that sure did sprout into a relationship which lasted till the end, with many more fun and memorable times spent together.
Cyril mama was born in British Sri Lanka and started working from a very young age in a prestigious tea planting company in the hills of Sri Lanka. He trained and worked under executives who were British, thus making him a perfect gentleman in the true sense of the word. I have never seen him emotional in all the years that I have known him.
His emotions were certainly in his private domain. He sure was his own man, did his duties towards all but, on his own terms. Having lost his father when he was just 1 ½ months old, his childhood I am sure would have been different. He may have formed his opinions in life through his happy and pleasant experiences, as well as those that were difficult and trying. He was a voracious reader and that also would have influenced who he was in many ways. He was not what you may call a religious man, but he had a strong value system by which he was guided and would not compromise on what he thought was right or wrong. He also may have chalked out the path he wanted to follow as an individual, observing the lives of his four siblings who were older to him. Cyril mama was a truly self-made man who achieved what he wanted; and lived by what he believed in. He loved his tennis and took great pride in keeping himself physically fit. He was always a dashing good looker, well dressed and had a charming personality. He had a good sense of humour and was comfortable in the company of any strata of society, across nationalities, diverse religions or other man-made boundaries; while he maintained a certain class and dignity in his interactions.
It was quite a shock to all of us when he took ill and passed away so suddenly. None of us ever realized his chronological age mainly because he was a youthful soul quite abreast of what was new around him and around the world. He was active on FB at age 82 and that in itself is amazing. He was the last surviving member of my mother’s siblings and I say goodbye to a generation of gracious, elegant and sauve dear ones who were born in British Sri Lanka.
Marie aunty holds a special place in my heart and my visits to Sri Lanka will not be complete if I don’t visit her, but Cyril mama’s smiling face with the boyish grin which didn’t leave him even in his eighties, will truly be missed.
Tommy and I cherish the memories of Cyril mama. May his soul rest in peace.
Shirani Thomas nee Nonis