Arvind Kumar (surgeon)


Arvind Kumar is the Chairman, Center for Chest Surgery and Director, Institute of Robotic Surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital New Delhi and Founder & Managing Trustee, Lung Care Foundation. He is Former Professor of Surgery & Head of Thoracic & Robotic Surgery Unit, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
Dr. Arvind Kumar has performed over 10,000 Thoracic Surgeries including over 5000 surgeries using Minimally Invasive and Robotic method. He has also performed 2000 complex chest surgeries and over 500 surgeries for Thymoma. Dr. Kumar is considered as the safest Thoracic Surgeon in Asia. He is also recognized world over for his pioneering contribution to development of Thoracic surgery in India and exceptional success rate for Myasthenia Gravis & Thymoma surgeries. He received the Dr. B. C. Roy Award in 2014.

Early life and education

Dr. Arvind Kumar was born in Bijnore and did his schooling from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. Dr. Kumar completed his MBBS from AIIMS, New Delhi in 1981 and Masters in Surgery at AIIMS. During the course of his medical education at AIIMS, he was nominated as the "Best Undergraduate Student" and "Best Postgraduate of the Year" in Surgery. His zeal to master the art of surgery was recognized with the position of Registrar in Surgery 1985 - 1988.

Professional experience

Dr Arvind Kumar is credited for performing the first Robotic Thymectomy for Myasthenia Gravis and Thymoma in India. He is also recognized for his largest experience with large invasive thymomas including resection of great vessels and reconstruction. Dr. Kumar has vast experience in performing surgeries for cancers of Lung, Food Pipe, Wind Pipe and various other cancers of the chest.

Cases

Center for Chest Surgery at SGRH, under the dynamic leadership of Dr. Arvind Kumar is one of the best center in the world in the field of thoracic and thoracoscopic surgery. This was achieved by setting up a group of 8 dedicated Thoracic Surgeons supported by dedicated trained nurses, physiotherapists, 24-hour ICU and other support services. All of them are dedicated to one goal i.e. delivering "World’s Best Chest Care with a Humane Touch ".
Some of the rare cases operated by team of doctors under the leadership of Dr. Kumar are:
  1. 21 years old NRI boy studying in New Zealand, had large tumor in left bronchus and was advised Pneumonectomy. He came to us and underwent successful removal of tumor with reimplantation of the Lung, thus saving his precious lung.
  2. 23 years old boy with serious road traffic accident and complete transection of his wind pipe was refused to be entertained by all major hospitals in Delhi. He was air-lifted to SGRH and in an extremely complex 8 hours operation, his broken wind pipe was rejoined successfully. He has returned to normal life.
  3. A 55 years old man with a huge watermelon size tumor in his chest underwent successful Robotic Surgical Resection, the first of its kind in India and has returned to normal life.
  4. 53 years old lady with Thymoma and multiple tumors in the chest underwent a 12-hour long complex operation using HIPEC, first time in India.
  5. A 48 years old gentleman with a large tumor in his wind pipe, who was almost choking to death had successful removal of the tumour under ECMO support, first time in India.
  6. 50 years old gentleman who had undergone removal of left lung in another hospital and had developed massive air-leak from the stump had key-hole repair of the left main bronchus through mediastinoscopic approach, first time in Asia.
  7. 52 years old gentleman with artificial denture swallowed half of his denture with 8 teeth in it. It got stuck in lower part of his food pipe. In a breakthrough surgery, Dr. Arvind removed it with Robotic assistance through 3 small holes in the chest and patient was discharged on 3rd day.
  8. 8 years old child came with a large magnet lying in his right side windpipe. Bronchoscopic removal was unsuccessful at another hospital and child was turning very sick. He was referred to us and the large magnet was removed by VATS i.e. Key-Hole approach and the torn windpipe was sutured, saving the life of this child. He was discharged 48 hours after this breakthrough surgery.
  9. 40 years old gentleman had front of his neck transected by an electric wire with transection of his wind pipe and food pipe. Both the pipes were successfully repaired using complex plastic surgical technique with successful outcome.

    Professional career

Having achieved the first goal of setting up a State of the art Patient Care and Training Centre in the field of Chest Surgery, Prof. Kumar has moved into primary and secondary prevention of Chest diseases by setting up Lung Care Foundation. This foundation is dedicated to work for dissemination of information about POLLUTION and LUNG DISEASES to the masses, basic and clinical research in the field of Chest diseases and provision of state of the art Chest Care to one and all. In the less than 9 months of its existence, LCF has conducted several Free Chest Disease detection & treatment camps at SGRH. It has also started a major initiative entitled "I CARE FOR LUNGS " which aims to raise an army of informed and motivated citizens of the country to address and take corrective measures for the issue of air pollution and prevent damage to lung health. The foundation recognizes the important role of children in this endeavor and has started a massive program to reach out to largest possible number of children.
As a faculty member, in the Department of Surgery at AIIMS, New Delhi, Dr. Kumar travelled extensively across the country and lectured to Medical students, postgraduates and surgeons on Contemporary topics in surgery. Post Graduate medical teaching was always his focus of attention. Since 2013, he has been a National Coordinator for the Post graduate teaching program of the Association of Surgeons of India and has conducted successful CMEs for thousands of Surgery Postgraduates across the country.

Training and fellowships

International Fellowships