Veteran physician and medical educator Dr. Patnam Siva Rama Krishna Rao passed away in Rajahmundry on May 18, 2026, at the age of 100.
Dr. Rao trained nearly 3,000 undergraduate medical students and served as an MD examiner for 18 medical colleges.
He was widely known for bedside clinical teaching, rigorous diagnostic training, and his medical textbook Differential Diagnoses and Medical Therapeutics.
Veteran doctor and medical teacher Dr. Patnam Siva Rama Krishna Rao passed away at his residence in Rajahmundry on May 18 at the age of 100, according to reports by The Hindu and The Times of India.
Dr. Rao taught medicine for nearly seven decades and served as an MD examiner for 18 medical colleges. During his career, he trained nearly 3,000 undergraduate medical students across Andhra Pradesh and mentored several postgraduate doctors who later practiced in India and abroad.
He studied and worked at Madras Medical College, Andhra Medical College in Visakhapatnam, Guntur Medical College, and Rangaraya Medical College in Kakinada. Former students remembered him for strict bedside teaching, detailed ward rounds, and his emphasis on clinical diagnosis through patient examination.
He was also the author of Differential Diagnoses and Medical Therapeutics, a textbook regarded by generations of medical students and physicians as a practical guide to internal medicine. Dr. Rao released the fifth edition of the book at the age of 99.
Apart from academics, Dr. Rao devoted significant time to charitable healthcare service for economically disadvantaged communities. He also presented research papers at national and international medical conferences, and his research work was published in several reputed medical journals.
Dr. Rao was additionally associated with Lions Club India and remained active in academic and social service activities well into his later years.
Former students and colleagues remembered Dr. Rao as part of a generation of physician-educators who helped strengthen institutional medical training during the post-Independence expansion of India’s healthcare education system.
He was particularly known for bedside teaching, a traditional form of ward-based clinical training centered on direct patient examination and observation. Senior doctors trained under him often described his clinical rounds as academically rigorous, methodical, and deeply focused on diagnostic reasoning.
Remembering him as an inspiring teacher and clinician, Dr. D. Raghunadharao, Founder Director of Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Visakhapatnam, described Dr. Rao as “an excellent teacher, a warm-hearted man, and exceptionally kind to students.”
Dr. N. Rama Koteswara Rao, pathologist at Chaitanya Medical Centre in Visakhapatnam, told The Hindu that Dr. Rao’s influence continued through generations of doctors trained under him.
“If he is being remembered even after 50 years, it reflects the kind of doctor he was and the legacy he leaves behind,” he said.
Former students and colleagues described Dr. Rao as a disciplined yet approachable teacher whose influence extended across medical institutions in Andhra Pradesh through decades of clinical instruction and mentorship.
His death marks the loss of a physician-educator associated with an earlier generation of Indian medical training that placed strong emphasis on bedside examination, institutional discipline, academic rigor, and long-term teacher-student mentorship within government medical colleges.
Many doctors trained under him continued to credit his emphasis on bedside examination, disciplined clinical practice, and careful diagnosis.
Dr. Rao is survived by his two daughters, a son-in-law, four grandchildren, three grandchildren-in-law, and five great-grandchildren.
(Rh/TP/MSM)
