Hyderabad ESIC Hospital dean is new director of AIIMS

Dated 9 September, it said the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) had approved the appointment of Srinivas to the post of director at AIIMS, New Delhi.

The order added that the appointment was for a period of five years, with effect from the date of assumption of charge of the post, or till attaining the age of 65 years, or until further orders, whichever was the earliest.

The order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training for the appointment of Dr. Srinivas to the post of Director at AIIMS, New Delhi.

Guleria received an extension for the post of the director AIIMS-Delhi twice since his appointment to the post on 28 March, 2017.

He was one of the faces of medical practitioners in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfares during the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

His second extension of tenure came to an end on Friday, 23 September.

Who is Dr M Srinivas?

Srinivas was a professor in the Department of Paediatric Surgery at AIIMS-Delhi before he joined ESIC Hospital and Medical College in Hyderabad in 2016.

He is the main architect of the revival of ESIC Hospital in Hyderabad.

In 2016, the hospital had only a few doctors, but as of today — at the end of his tenure — it has more than 300 doctors and is one of the busiest hospitals in the city.

The selection process

In March, the names of three doctors — Nikhil Tandon, head of the department of endocrinology at AIIMS; Rajesh Malhotra, chief of AIIMS Trauma Centre and the head of the department of orthopaedics; and Pramod Garg, professor in the gastroenterology department in the institute — were shortlisted by a search-cum-selection committee and subsequently approved by the Institute Body, the top decision-making body of the AIIMS. They were then sent to the ACC for approval.

On 20 June, the committee, headed by the prime minister, sought a wider panel of names for the post of director of AIIMS.

The names of Srinivas and Dr Sanjay Behari, director of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology in Thiruvananthapuram were sent to the ACC for approval.

Finally, on 23 September, the ACC made the announcement for the post.