A pioneer in cardiac care and reliable healthcare

Shortly after emigrating from India, Amar Desai, MD, quickly found work as an emergency department physician at Baptist Health Louisville. “It was 1975, and I was thankful to have found a position following the completion of my residency program at a hospital that was just opening its doors.”

Dr. Desai moved on to gain experience at other hospitals as he found his way to what would become his main focus: internal medicine. “I was very fortunate to gain knowledge under different doctors who were pioneers in new fields. I was becoming accustomed to a new country, but more so, I was becoming an expert in a specialty that was beginning to take off and found a primary focus in interventional cardiology.”

In the early-1980s, Dr. Desai found a new home at what is now Baptist Health Hardin, which at the time had just gained certification to become a hospital. Over the course of the next couple of decades, Dr. Desai was instrumental in bringing a full spectrum of cardiology services to Hardin County.

“When I started working in Elizabethtown, we were having to travel to Louisville to do more complex procedures, which resulted in having to plan operations around the openings in another hospital’s schedule and increasing barriers to care, including the need to have transportation, potential lodging, be removed from your support system, and the accruement of additional expenses. We knew that we wanted to be able to meet the needs of our community right here, and that is what we set out to do.”

After only five years at his new organization, Dr. Desai opened a cardiac cath lab where he could perform tests and procedures, including ablations, angiograms, and the implantation of pacemakers.

“We were making great strides, but I wanted to be able to do everything our patients might need in house without having to delay essential care or cause them to leave their community,” he said.

In 1998, Dr. Desai brought that goal to life when he performed the first open-heart surgery at what was then Hardin Memorial Hospital. Following 50 years of dedicated service to helping patients and transforming the landscape of healthcare for an entire region, Dr. Desai retired to spend more time with his family.

“What I found was that the care of a doctor doesn’t end with retirement,” he said. “When I learned about the cardiology wing in the new Baptist Health Hardin pavilion, I knew that I wanted to be a part of that. It is my way of continuing to pave the road to more advanced, readily accessible healthcare for future generations of patients.”

Dr. Desai is confident in his investment because firsthand experience has taught him that at some point, everyone will need healthcare, and having access to quality, reliable healthcare ‘in your backyard’ is invaluable and a legacy worth contributing to.