Dr. Jagdish Chaturvedi: The ENT Surgeon Turning Clinical Gaps Into Affordable Medical Innovations

Bengaluru-based ENT surgeon Dr. Jagdish Chaturvedi has spent years working at the intersection of clinical medicine, medical device innovation, and entrepreneurship, while also building a parallel career in stand-up comedy.

After completing his MBBS from Sree Siddhartha Medical College and DNB training in Otorhinolaryngology at St. John's Medical College, Bengaluru, Chaturvedi went on to become a Stanford India Biodesign Fellow in 2012. He later earned an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Hospital Management, reflecting his interest in translating clinical problems into scalable healthcare solutions. Since 2010, he has worked on developing affordable medical devices tailored to the needs of the Indian healthcare system.

His innovation journey began with a problem he encountered during medical training: patients from resource-limited settings often lacked access to the diagnostic equipment available in major urban hospitals.

Over time, Chaturvedi became associated with a wider portfolio of medical devices spanning ENT care, pulmonology, neonatal respiratory support, and other clinical areas. In 2016, he had co-invented 18 medical devices, with five licensed across ENT, pulmonology, medicine, and hepatobiliary applications. Because these figures reflect his portfolio at that point in time, they should be read as historical rather than current totals.

He currently serves as the Founder and CEO of HiiiH Innovations Pvt. Ltd., a Bengaluru-based medtech company developing portable diagnostic technologies and remote examination tools for home healthcare and telemedicine, while continuing his clinical practice as an ENT surgeon.

His broader career reflects a growing model of doctor-led medical innovation in India: clinicians identify unmet needs at the bedside, then work with engineers, designers, manufacturers, and entrepreneurs to develop practical solutions.

Dr. Chaturvedi’s path into medical innovation can be traced to his clinical training in Bengaluru.

In 2009, while training under Professor Ravi Nayar, then head of the ENT department at St John’s Medical College and Hospital, Chaturvedi encountered patients, including farmers with throat cancers, who reached specialist care at advanced stages.

Dr. Chaturvedi recalled that rural outreach camps often relied on indirect laryngoscopy using mirrors and headlamps, making early detection of throat diseases difficult. In contrast, tertiary hospitals had access to expensive endoscopic imaging systems that produced clearer, magnified views of the airway.

The experience prompted a question: could clinicians use a compact, lower-cost system to visualize the ear, nose, and throat without depending on conventional imported equipment?

That idea eventually contributed to the development of Entraview, a portable ENT endoscopy system.

Mint reported that Entraview cost less than one-fifth of imported ENT diagnostic kits available at the time. The same report said the device had supported screening of large numbers of patients in rural India.

MIT Technology Review noted that Entraview later went on to assist in the examination of more than 200,000 patients, demonstrating the potential of low-cost medical technologies in expanding access to specialist care in resource-limited settings.

Developing Entraview was not a straightforward success story.

Dr. Chaturvedi had clinical training but lacked formal experience in engineering, industrial design and medical product development. Mint reported that he initially struggled to find engineers and designers who could convert his concept into a reliable prototype at a manageable cost.

He later worked with Icarus Design Consultants to develop a functioning version.

According to Chaturvedi's account, he lost money after engaging an engineering firm that failed to deliver the expected prototype. He later worked with Icarus Design Consultants to develop a functioning version.

The experience became a turning point, highlighting the importance of structured product development, multidisciplinary collaboration and iterative prototyping rather than attempting to build a complete device independently from the outset.

However his prototype won a gold medal in a 2012 competition involving approximately 800 technology innovations and associated with India’s Department of Science and Technology and Lockheed Martin.

In 2012, Chaturvedi was selected for the Stanford India Biodesign Innovation Fellowship.

The fellowship, supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, and Stanford University, trains clinicians, engineers and innovators to identify and validate unmet clinical needs before designing technology-based solutions. The programme emphasizes needs finding, concept generation, prototyping, intellectual property, regulatory planning and commercialization through multidisciplinary collaboration.

For Chaturvedi, this approach offered a structured framework for converting clinical observations into medical products.

He has since credited the fellowship with helping him simplify the original Entraview concept, focus on the most practical clinical application and build collaborations with engineers, designers and industry partners. He has also contributed to teaching and promoting the Biodesign methodology for medical device innovation in India.

His subsequent work increasingly reflected multidisciplinary collaboration between doctors, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs, rather than a clinician attempting to build technology alone.

In 2016, Chaturvedi received recognition through MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 program in the humanitarian category.

The recognition highlighted his work on affordable medical technologies aimed at improving healthcare access.

By that stage, his innovation work had expanded beyond a single portable endoscope into a broader medical device portfolio.

By 2016, Dr. Chaturvedi had co-invented 18 medical devices and that five had been licensed across ENT, pulmonology, medicine and hepatobiliary applications.

It was also reported that three products had reached the market at that time: Entraview, Thorashield and a balloon sinuplasty device.

The devices aimed to reduce costs by more than 50% while lowering maintenance requirements.

His official profile states that many of his innovations have since been transferred to Indian medical device companies for further development and commercialization, while others have progressed through startup ventures focused on affordable healthcare technologies.

Thorashield is among the devices associated with Chaturvedi’s innovation portfolio. It is a device developed to make pleural fluid drainage safer and more practical.

The device was developed to improve the safety of pleural fluid drainage, a procedure that carries risks such as pneumothorax if the lung is inadvertently injured.

According to his innovation portfolio, Thorashield was designed to improve procedural safety while simplifying drainage in settings where access to specialized thoracic equipment may be limited.

Another major device associated with Chaturvedi’s portfolio is SAANS, a portable neonatal continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, system.

According to Dr. Chaturvedi’s official innovation portfolio, SAANS was designed to provide short-term breathing support to newborns with respiratory distress syndrome in non-NICU environments and during transport to higher-level care.

The device was developed to address delays in respiratory support for newborns in smaller hospitals and during referral transport, where conventional CPAP systems may not be readily available.

Chaturvedi’s official innovation portfolio also lists SinuCare, a balloon sinuplasty system developed as a minimally invasive option for chronic rhinosinusitis.

The portfolio notes that the system is intended for use by trained ENT surgeons and may be used in a day-care procedure under local or general anaesthesia. It may also form part of a hybrid procedure alongside functional endoscopic sinus surgery, or FESS.

The device was designed with an emphasis on affordability to increase access to balloon sinuplasty, which has traditionally depended on expensive imported systems.

Another device listed in Chaturvedi’s innovation portfolio is EustaCare, an Eustachian tuboplasty system.

His official website states that the system was developed for minimally invasive treatment of persistent Eustachian tube dysfunction and designed with India and other emerging markets in mind.

Eustachian tube dysfunction can cause symptoms such as ear fullness, discomfort and hearing-related problems by affecting pressure regulation in the middle ear.

Noxeno focuses on a common pediatric problem: foreign objects lodged in a child’s nose.

Children may insert beads, seeds, toy parts or other small objects into their nostrils. Removal can become difficult, particularly when visibility is poor or repeated attempts move the object deeper.

His official innovation portfolio states that Noxeno incorporates LED-enhanced visualisation, a spring-loaded hinge and a modular design intended to support sterilisation and reuse.

The device aims to improve first-attempt removal of anterior nasal foreign bodies while minimizing patient discomfort and reducing the need for referral or repeat procedures.

The device is designed to assist medical professionals in removing anterior nasal foreign bodies at the first point of care.

Dr. Chaturvedi’s listed innovations also include Accufeed, a device intended to support nasogastric tube placement.

Accufeed is designed to improve the accuracy of nasogastric tube placement, helping reduce complications associated with incorrect tube insertion.

According to Dr. Chaturvedi’s official innovation portfolio, Accufeed uses electromagnetic technology to guide tube placement and is designed as a portable, lightweight system for potential use in intensive care and emergency settings.

The technology is intended to reduce complications associated with blind tube insertion while supporting quicker and more accurate placement in critical care environments.

Chaturvedi also became involved in developing a wider ecosystem for medical device innovation.

He co-founded InnAccel with Siraj Dhanani and A. Vijayarajan, according to a 2015 YourStory report.

The report described InnAccel as a medtech-focused accelerator built around the idea that technologies developed for Western healthcare systems may not always fit the affordability, infrastructure and workflow needs of countries such as India.

YourStory reported in 2015 that India imported roughly 75% of its medical devices at the time.

InnAccel aimed to help entrepreneurs move through clinical need identification, conceptualization, design, engineering and regulatory certification.

During his time at InnAccel, Chaturvedi also helped develop physician-led innovation programmes that trained clinicians to identify unmet clinical needs before designing new medical technologies.

NITI Aayog’s Frontier Tech platform has profiled Chaturvedi in connection with a handheld, AI-enabled endoscopy system intended to improve access to diagnostics in underserved settings.

The platform describes a newer technology that combines portable endoscopic imaging with artificial intelligence capabilities. It also reports impact metrics, including reach involving more than 3,000 doctors and use across four countries.

Unlike the earlier Entraview system, this newer platform integrates artificial intelligence to assist clinicians in image interpretation and remote examination, reflecting the evolution of Chaturvedi's work from portable diagnostics toward AI-assisted digital healthcare solutions.

• MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35, 2016: Recognised for his work in affordable medical innovation.

• 2012 Gold Medal: Mint reported that the Entraview prototype won gold in a technology innovation competition involving around 800 entries.

• IASP Developing Countries Grant

He is also a stand-up comedian and theatre performer. The Better India has profiled the unusual overlap between his medical and comedy careers, reporting that audience members sometimes approached him after performances with scans and medical questions.

His official website describes him as a stand-up comedian who has performed at corporate events and public shows, in addition to hundreds of live and online performances.

His website also says that health-related videos during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the informal label “Corona Wala Doctor.”

Dr. Chaturvedi has often described comedy as a creative outlet that complements his medical career, while also using humor to communicate health information and connect with wider audiences.

Chaturvedi has also written about healthcare innovation and the challenges of developing medical technology in India.

His official website lists the book Inventing Medical Devices: A Perspective from India, which focuses on medical device development from an Indian context.

The book draws on his experiences as a clinician, innovator and entrepreneur, outlining the Biodesign approach to identifying unmet clinical needs and translating them into practical medical technologies.

For publication, bibliographic details such as edition, publisher and ISBN should be independently checked against a publisher or library catalogue before being added.

Across projects associated with Entraview, SAANS, SinuCare, EustaCare, Noxeno, Accufeed and other technologies, a common principle emerges: medical devices need to reflect the conditions in which clinicians and patients will actually use them.

Over more than a decade of innovation, Dr. Chaturvedi has consistently advocated a clinician-led approach to medical technology development, emphasizing that solutions should be affordable, easy to use and designed around real-world healthcare challenges. His work continues to illustrate how close collaboration between clinicians, engineers and entrepreneurs can help bridge gaps in access to quality healthcare, particularly in low-resource settings.