Prafulla Kumar Sen MD (7 December 1915 – 22 July 1982) was an Indian vascular and cardiothoracic surgeon, who led the world's sixth attempt of human heart transplant and India's first in 1968.
Sen was active in establishing postgraduate programmes in surgical training and one of the early surgeons to perform aortic surgery in India in the 1950s.
After being the first in India to perform a closed mitral valvotomy in 1952, within a year he repaired a coarctation of the aorta and by 1956 he had successfully attempted the first direct vision closure of an atrial septal defect.
[3] He began his early education at a public school in Jamtada, Bihar,[3] before attending the Victoria College of Sciences, Nagpur.
[2] Sen's internships and surgical training were completed at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital (KEM), Bombay between 1938 and 1943, after which he returned to G.S.
However, he was ambitious, a "buccaneer" and had a wish to extend Indian medicine into the rapidly growing and exciting arena of open heart surgery.
Before returning to India in 1952, Sen visited surgical research centres all over the United States including Minneapolis, New York and Baltimore.
[3] He initially worked in experimental and clinical research, but was later active in establishing postgraduate qualifications in cardiothoracic surgery during a period in which he also founded specialist departments at G.S.
[2] In addition to North American networks, Rockefeller support and funding, and the ICMR,[4] Sen was also influenced by Soviet surgeons, particularly Vladimir Demikhov.
[2][4] In 1953, he repaired a coarctation of the aorta and by 1956 he had successfully attempted the first direct vision closure of an atrial septal defect under hypothermia and inflow occlusion.
In 1962 following the death of a child whilst repairing a ventricular septal defect with the assistance of a heart- lung machine, Sen made his third and final overseas Rockefeller tour which included Japan, Mexico, much of the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
[12] Sen believed India had a vast potential as a transplant centre with a wealth of donor organs resulting from accidents on its disordered roads and railways.
[13] Sen's contributions to the procedure of myocardial acupuncture in ischaemic heart disease were followed by developments in aortic arch replacement.
His students included Sharad Panday, M. S. Valiathan and S. I. Padmavati and he maintained contact with heart surgeons outside India such as William Bigelow, Denton Cooley, Donald Ross, Norman Shumway and Demikhov.
[3][14] From 1977, Sen practiced as a consultant cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon at Calcutta Hospital and Research Centre, where he remained until his death in 1982.