People

A Brigadier's Rank

Chairman and Managing Director of Dr Lal PathLabs (LPL), Dr Arvind Lal (60), has been accorded the honorary rank of Brigadier in the Armed Forces Medical Services by President Pratibha Patil. Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services Lt— General NK Parmar— conferred the honour to Dr Lal. Dr Arvind Lal is a pioneer in bringing laboratory services in India on par with the Western world. Born on August 22, 1949, Dr Lal is an alumnus of the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune, having received his graduate and post-graduate medical degrees from the prestigious institute. Later, he worked as a lecturer in the department of pathology in AFMC. In 1977, Dr Lal took charge of Dr Lal PathLabs, the medical diagnostics laboratory founded in 1949 by his late father. Under his expert guidance and leadership, LPL has become one of the most reputed laboratories in Asia. Dr Lal has revolutionised laboratory medicine in the country by pioneering new tests, instruments and ICT (Information-Communications-Technology) systems. Dr Lal has also served as a pathologist to many present and past Presidents and Prime Ministers of India. LPL is one of the first labs in India to be recognized by the Government to test for swine flu. Conferred with the Padma Shri award by the President this year, Dr Lal is also a recipient of the Indira Gandhi Solidarity Award in 1994, Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine in 2003, Delhi Ratan Award in 2005, besides many others.

Back to Old Territory

After a stint with private equity, Somnath Chakravorty (47) is back to managing hospital. This time, he has been appointed as the CEO of Delhi-based GM Modi Hospital. Chakravorty would look at strategic planning, partnerships and alliances, business development, technology development and expansion of the hospital. From the GM - Strategy & Planning of Max Healthcare as a founder member of the organisation to COO of Artemis Health Institute to Director- I-Ven Medicare, Chakravorty traversed various roles and organisations. In the last responsibility at I-VEN Medicare, the healthcare initiative of ICICI Venture where he was the Director - West & South, he was mainly responsible for identifying investment opportunity and guiding performance improvement for better return of investment. He has also worked as an observer in Harvard Medical College Hospitals in Boston to understand work flow process, HIS system and Operating Principals. His love to manage operations is the reason for his choice to move to GM Modi Hospital. He says, "This was an opportunity to come back from PE and investments to operations." The newly appointed CEO will focus on exponential growth and a complete turnaround of the hospital as a 'Global Health Village' offering one stop solution for all healthcare requirements. Explaining the changes that he plans to bring to the hospital, he says, "Right now, the hospital is a secondary care facility. Soon, it will cater to primary and tertiary care. It will also have comprehensive preventive health check programmes. It will be a one stop solution for all care."

A Challenging Task

After serving the hospitality industry for 16-long years and then changing gears to join Apollo Hospitals, Chennai as the CEO (where he worked for almost two decades), George Eapen (58) is now again on the move. This time, Eapen has taken the reins of Pune-based Jehangir Hospital as the CEO. Eapen's role has become all the more significant as Jehangir Hospital received flak in the recent times when the country's first swine flu patient died in the hospital. After successfully leading Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, Eapen's plans for Jehangir Hospital in his own words is to improve the performance standards and the medical outcome of the hospital. While talking about the swine flu controversy which raised questions about Jehangir's credibility, Eapen asserts, "Jehangir was not in the news for the wrong reasons, but for the right ones. Let me clarify that the hospital has taken extra initiative of identifying the diseased and warning the Government that the swine flu is in the community. Media should have had done proper investigation and then come out with the truth." Eapen feels that leading Jehangir Hospital is a challenge more so because it is a trust hospital with its own mission and vision. "There is a bigger task in front of me to lead the hospital vis-à-vis margins to bring quality healthcare for the patients in Pune. I have to make sure of good quality outcomes and acceptable NABH standards at the latter stage. We have already started working towards it and by the end of 2010, we should probably get the NABH accreditation," concludes Eapen.