Dr. (Prof) R.K. Tuli is the Founder of “SOHAM” - Society for Holistic Advancement of Medicine. He is popularly known as The Father of Holistic Medicine as he established the world’s first ever Department of its kind at state-of-the-art multi-speciality tertiary care Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi in the year 1996. He is a 1964 batch alumnus of the prestigious Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune. He was commissioned by the President of India into the Armed Forces Medical Service and seconded to the Indian Air Force.

He received postgraduate training in aerospace medicine and sports medicine, and completed a term for M.D. (General Medicine) at the Army Hospital (R&R) during 1977-79. He was granted premature retirement from service in 1981.

He pursued excellence beyond best of modern medicine by gaining proficiency in the system of Acupuncture at various international institutes in China and Sri Lanka; qualified to be a trainer in Ashtanga Yoga, Ayurvedic Panchakar.

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Let us start from the beginning. You were a doctor in the Indian Air Force, trained in the allopathic system. What prompted you to make this paradigm shift to holistic medicine?

After graduation from AFMC, I was commissioned by the President of India into Armed Forces Medical Service and served in the Indian Air Force as an aviation medicine expert looking after flying fitness of fighter and bomber aircrew, and played a vital role in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

I was medical adviser to the Air Force Sports Control Board, looking after all categories of sportsmen. Both the above jobs required peak human fitness by progressive promotion of their health, thereby preventing any scope of sickness. Also, my thesis for M. D. (medicine) at Army Hospital (R&R) in 1978 revealed successful reversal of asymptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD) by drug-free conservative management. It earned my guide and me the coveted Fellowship of the International College of Angiology.

It was evolving me into harnessing inherent potential in each individual for better health and natural reversal of sickness. During the same period at the Army Hospital (R&R) I was exposed to the potential of the system of acupuncture to much superior outcome of medical emergencies, incurable pain and cure of a vast range of conventionally chronic ailments. At that stage in 1981, I was granted premature retirement from service. That opened all avenues for me to evolve professionally and delve deeper to incorporate the philosophy of Maharishis Charaka and Patanjali as drug-free natural modalities to complement their time honoured ‘art ‘ into best practices of the ‘science’ of evidence based modern medicine to develop a model to treat the human being as a whole ‘body-mind-spirit’ and all the ailments of an individual concurrently with predictable, reproducible and sustainable benefits which also prove to be harmless, more accessible, affordable, and promise to achieve World Health Organisation (W.H.O.) objective “Health For All’.  My professional evolution was happening at a time when the emerging rise in various life-style disorders and drug-resistant microbes seemed to negate all the progress in medical technology in previous 3-4 decades as reflected by persistent rise in morbidity due to them.

Due to my growing credibility as the pioneer of this all inclusive approach to reversal of all kinds of sickness and restore positive wellness, I was invited by the Founder Chairman of Apollo Group of Hospitals, Padma Vibhushan awardee Dr.Prathap C. Reddy in 1996 to establish the world’s first-ever department of this all integrative approach making a prophecy, “Holistic Medicine would be the medicine of 21st century”.  Thereby, I came to be labelled as the Father of Holistic Medicine. This subsequently became a board certified latest specialty in the U.S.A. Due to its tremendous benefits it is gaining worldwide popularity.

Have you at any time been disillusioned by the corporate culture in the mega Indian private medical system where doctors are used to meet management targets?

In spite of ‘out-of-the-world’ initiative of the Apollo Chairman and drug-free complementary benefits of this patient-centric modality to improve the final outcome and reverse the very cause of sickness across all specialities of medicine leading to restoration of positive health, the peers at the hospital felt intimidated at its success. Instead of pooling up to minimise human suffering, the reverse happened. In direct proportion to the success of this novel approach I was progressively isolated by the peers to the extent to compel myself to withdraw from the hospital. Of course, this success in enhanced efficacy in patient care hampers revenues. Even other corporate hospitals, in spite of appreciating its tremendous benefits, have refused to extend its benefits to their suffering clients.