Raghu Ram

Raghu Ram Pillarisetti is an Indian oncoplastic breast surgeon, the youngest recipient of the Overseas Gold Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the founder of KIMS-USHALAKSHMI Centre for Breast Diseases at KIMS Hospitals,the first dedicated and comprehensive facility for breast healthcare in the Indian subcontinent. He is also the founder of Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation, a private organization working in tandem with government and non government bodies for spreading awareness about breast cancer and Pink Connexion, the first newsletter from India, a quarterly, about breast healthcare. The Government of India honoured him in 2015 with the award of Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.

In 2017, the Medical council of India selected him for the prestigious Dr B C Roy National award for ‘Outstanding service in the field of Socio Medical Relief’ for the year 2016.

Raghu Ram Pillarisetti was born on 22 September 1966 in Guntur in the undivided Andhra Pradesh in India to medical doctor parents, P. V. Chalapathi Rao and Ushalakshmi Kumari, a breast cancer survivor. He graduated in medicine (MBBS) Siddhartha Medical College, secured a master's degree in surgery (MS) obtaining first place from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore in 1995.He then went to UK and obtained FRCS in 1997 from all the four Surgical Royal Colleges in the British Isles (Edinburgh, London, Glasgow & Ireland).He subsequently completed Higher Surgical Training & subspecialty training in oncoplastic breast surgery at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in London and at the Nottingham Breast Institute. In 2002, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. He relocated to India in 2007 and established a dedicated purpose built facility for breast health care at KIMS Hospitals in Hyderabad. The Centre, KIMS-USHALAKSHMI Centre for Breast Diseases, bears his mother’s name (Ushalakshmi).

Raghu Ram, over the course of time, founded Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation for spreading awareness about the disease and, later, started publishing Pink Connexion, a quarterly newsletter to aid his awareness campaigns.

In 2017, under the auspices of the Foundation, he conceived, designed & developed the world’s first mobile app that provides information in 12 languages about every aspect of breast cancer and benign (non cancer) breast health issues in simple easy to understand format, which is freely downloadable in iOs and android platforms.

In 2019, in an initiative for the first time in the world, he has utilized artificial intelligence by integrating life size augmented reality technology in a mobile app to spread the message of early detection of breast cancer to a large section of people. This is a futuristic technology that has a potential for the ‘celebrity and doctor’ to enter into people’s homes and create awareness, without actually physically being present.

Between 2012 – 2016, he has overseen the implementation of south Asia’s largest population based breast cancer screening programme in the southern Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation in partnership with the Governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh screened 200, 000 underprivileged women spread across 4000 villages for early signs of breast cancer by way of Clinical Breast Examination (CBE) performed by over 3000 healthcare workers. Women diagnosed with breast cancer were treated free of cost under the State Government’s Arogyasree scheme.

In 2016, the Government of India invited him to be part of the Steering Committee and a high powered Technical Advisory Group (TAG) set up by the Union Ministry of Health, which has drafted guidelines to replicate the Clinical Breast Examination (CBE) based breast cancer screening programme across the nation.

He is an International Surgical Adviser of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and has organised ten post graduate courses in India during the period from 2000 to 2013, the highest number of courses RCSEd conducted at an overseas location. As local convenor, he has been organizing the Intercollegiate Final MRCS Examinations in Hyderabad on behalf of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh since 2008 and the Royal College of Surgeons of England since 2015.[1][2][3][4][5]

He is a member of the governing council of the Association of Surgeons of India since 2013 and has served as its overseas coordinator during 2009-2012. He is a former secretary (2011–13), a former vice president (2013–14), the youngest in the organization's history, of the Association of Breast Surgeons of India and is its president elect for the term from 2015-2016. He served as a member of the board of advocates of the American Society of Breast Surgeons in 2009, the first surgeon from outside USA to sit in the board. He is associated with the Indian Association of Surgical Oncology as a member, as its overseas coordinator (2005–08), as the editorial secretary of its newsletters (2009–10), as a former member of the executive committee(2011–12) and as the joint editor of its official journal, Indian Journal of Surgical Oncology (IJSO) (2010–14). He has participated and organized several conferences and symposiums where he has delivered orations and keynote addresses and has moderated many panel discussions. He is the author of many articles on breast healthcare and has contributed nine chapters in three text books including the text book series, Recent Advances in Surgery.

Under the auspices of Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation, he championed a number of unique and innovative initiatives in India to transform breast cancer from a ‘taboo’ issue to a much commonly discussed one, thus creating the much needed awareness about importance of early detection. Since 2007, he has spearheaded the annual “Pink Ribbon Campaign”, which is a benchmark breast cancer awareness activity in Hyderabad’s calendar during the month of October (international breast cancer awareness month).

Ragu Ram holds the fellowship of all the four royal colleges of surgeons in the UK (FRCS), Royal College of Surgeons of London, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Royal College of Surgeons of Glasgow and Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, besides the fellowship of the American College of Surgeons (FACS). He is a recipient of awards such as Visishta Ugadi Puraskar, Vishal Bharat Ugadi Puraskar and Rotary Vocational excellence Award and featured in the book, In Pursuit of Passion, a publication covering the lives of 50 young achievers in the state of Andhra Pradesh. He received the Overseas Gold Medal from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2013, the youngest ever recipient of the award. The Government of India included Ram in the 2015 Republic day honours list for the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri,making him the youngest surgeon from Andhra Pradesh to receive the award.

In 2017, the Medical council of India selected him for the prestigious Dr B C Roy National award for ‘Outstanding service in the field of Socio Medical Relief’ for the year 2016.