Deepak Narayan, MBBS, professor of surgery (plastic) and interim director of Yale Cancer Center’s Melanoma Program, died of cancer on December 24 at age 56.
As professor of surgery and Residency Program director, and in his work with the melanoma program, Narayan was credited with making important clinical and academic contributions, and held key leadership roles both at Yale and nationally.
Narayan was born in July 1962 in India, where he began his medical career. He obtained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in the United Kingdom, and joined the Yale Surgery family shortly thereafter when he began his general surgery residency. He completed a research fellowship at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey of the then-University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and a subsequent research fellowship in the Departments of Surgery and Genetics at Yale. Narayan completed his general surgery residency at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, where he won every award offered at graduation for clinical excellence, research, humanism, and professionalism.
Yale’s plastic surgery residency was next, followed by academic appointment in the Section of Plastic Surgery. Narayan quickly rose the ranks to full professor and chief of Plastic Surgery at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, where he served for the past 15 years.
Perhaps Narayan’s greatest legacy is his work in the field of melanoma. He was a longtime member of the Yale Cancer Center’s Melanoma Program, ultimately rising to the level of interim director. He will be remembered for his prodigious and vast clinical knowledge base and his ability to develop innovative solutions for the most complex multidisciplinary cases.
Narayan is survived by his father H.B.N. Shetty, brother Prashanth Shetty, and sisters Shobha Shetty and Aruna Gupta.