Featured team profile

Dr AK Dewan, MS, MCh Chairperson Shradha Cancer Care Trust Medical Director Ganga Prem Hospice

Dr AK Dewan

Dr Ajay Dewan has been a cancer surgeon for 25 years. Even when he was training to be a surgeon, he was especially interested in oncology and wrote his thesis on “liver cancer”. He trained under Dr KK Pandey, who was not just his senior at the Safdurjung Hospital in Delhi but was also his personal teacher and mentor during his under-graduate medicine studies days.

For the last 12 years Dr. Dewan has been Senior Consultant and is also now Medical Director at the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute in Delhi, India’s premier cancer care and research centre. In his own words, his priority currently is his patients and Dr. Dewan spends 12 hours of every day at the hospital, staying on call 24X7. On an average, he conducts 50 major and 100 minor cancer surgeries every month and has been involved in over 13,000 surgeries in the course of his career.

Dr. Dewan likes to keep himself abreast with the latest researches and studies in the field of oncology, as apart from his charitable activities with Ganga Prem Hospice and his full time job as a surgeon, he often writes articles and lectures on cancer and oncology. He is the chief editor of the "Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute Monthly Newsletter' and has also had over a dozen articles published in national and international journals. In addition, he has presented over 300 papers in various medical conferences and seminars both in India and abroad.

Dr. Dewan enjoys spending his spare time with his family at his home in Delhi and he also likes travelling with them, especially to the Himalaya, which is one of his favourite holiday destinations. As his wife is a senior doctor herself, Dr. Dewan has been well supported in his very demanding work by Mrs Dewan and their two sons.

His long-standing interest in terminal cancer and hospice care led him to establish the “Shradha Cancer Care Trust” in November 2005. He was supported in this endeavour by spiritual mentors from Uttarkashi who shifted the project’s focus from just the physical component to holistic terminal cancer care by building in a spiritual perspective. Dr. Dewan is the chief oncologist for Ganga Prem Hospice, providing consultations to patients at the monthly cancer care clinics in Rishikesh and also contributing towards creating awareness on terminal cancer care by making presentations about the subject at different fora.