Parallel to his clinical work ran a deep commitment to teaching and knowledge-building. Dr Khalilullah played a pivotal role in shaping postgraduate cardiology training, mentoring hundreds of students who would later head departments, institutions, and professional bodies across India. His editorial stewardship of the Indian Heart Journal strengthened its scientific rigour, while his presidency of the Cardiological Society of India reflected the respect he commanded within the profession.

Honours followed: the Dr B.C. Roy National Award and Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 1990, and numerous lifetime achievement awards. Yet recognition never became the centre of his narrative. A larger question continued to preoccupy him: how to ensure that the rapid advances in cardiology did not become inaccessible to those without means.

By the time Dr Khalilullah stepped away from government service, his imprint on Indian cardiology was deeply established. From developing the country’s first indigenous pacemaker to building one of its most influential public cardiology departments, his career mirrored the speciality’s maturation. Clinical electrophysiology, catheter ablation, interventional cardiology, and structured postgraduate training were not abstract achievements but carefully embedded practices within public institutions.

It was this lifelong concern for access and ethics that shaped his next chapter.

The Heart Centre: Where Care Comes Before Cost

When Dr Khalilullah founded The Heart Centre in New Delhi, it was conceived not as a high-margin private institution, but as a principled counter-model to the growing corporatisation of cardiac care. The Centre was built on a simple but uncompromising belief: excellence need not be priced beyond reach, and compassion must remain central to medicine rather than peripheral to it.