Padma Bhushan awardee Dr. P. Venugopal, former Director of AIIMS and pioneer of cardiac surgery, who conducted India’s first heart transplant and over 50,000 heart surgeries in his career, passed away peacefully on 8 October 2024.

• He was cremated on 9 October 2024 at Lodhi Road Crematorium at 3 pm.
• He is survived by his wife, Priya Sarkar, and his daughter, Saiansha Panangipalli.
• He published his memoirs, Heartfelt, jointly with his wife in 2023.
• Dr Venugopal was a humanitarian and philanthropist in the truest sense of the words, hlgiving free medical advice to and performing free surgeries on hundreds of underprivileged people.
• He has the honour of performing the first surgeries at the what are currently the world's only two totally free-of-cost to-the-patient superspeciality hospitals at Bengaluru and Puttaparthi.