M'lore: Dr Dinkar Rai Conferred Chairmanship of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
from Joe Gonsalves
for Daijiworld Media Network
M'lore, Feb 20: Dr Dinkar Rai is an eminent surgeon and the chief of Vascular Surgery and Vascular Laboratories at the Interfaith Medical Center in the borough of Brooklyn has been conferred the honor of Chairmanship of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, a very prestigious body having its branches all over the world. Dr Dinker Rai succeeds Prof Goheen, the former ambassador of USA to India. Dr Dinker has a very responsible assignment as he is called up to carry on the tradition commenced and carried out by the freedom fighter K M Munshi who was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi.
Dr Dinkar Rai is an eminent surgeon and the chief of Vascular Surgery and Vascular Laboratories at the Interfaith Medical Center in the borough of Brooklynin New York since 1987. A graduate of St. Aloysius' school, Dinker was an accomplished cricketer who had an opportunity to represent his state of Karnataka in Ranji Trophy. While he could have made cricket as his career and excelled in it, he chose the other fork on the road and decided to become a physician. Dinker is also a talented artist and has the distinction of presenting his portrait of John F Kennedy to the president at the age of fourteen, which incidentally has been archived in the Kennedy museum.
Medicine opened up many more doors for Dr Rai. Naturally inquisitive and innovative, the study of venous diseases captured his imagination and resulted in some pioneering work in that field. Every surgeon is an artist and Dr Rai carried this axiom to the limit when he put his artistic talents to good use. He also discovered new devices including a new venous catheter that bears his name – Dr Rai Catheter.
Dr Rai put forth a unique theory about the motions of the valves in the heart, which has put him in center stage of futuristic thinking in the physiology of the human heart. He has traveled extensively throughout the world as a proponent of this theory that is slowly being accepted by the medical community. Dr Rai is confident that his theory will eventually be accepted universally in the field of cardiology.
Recipient of many special awards and recognitions, Dr Rai is a tireless researcher, scientist, surgeon and artist with many interests. He is also a scholar in Sanskrit and Vedanta. He is especially interested in Sankhya philosophy, which forms the basis of ancient Hinduism. He put forward the theory that the Greek mathematician Pythagoras visited India to study Sankhya philosophy in Ellora and Elephanta. His work in the field of Indian philosophy and culture has been recognized and in 1999 he had been invited to attend the World Religion Conference of the United Nations, hosted by King Abdullah of Jordan.