Editorial biography · No. 82
Dr. Kim Vaiphei
Histopathologist who led PGIMER's department and the national association
- Full name
- Kim Vaiphei
- Institution
- Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh
- Specialty
- Histopathology · Gastrointestinal and oesophageal pathology
- Training and role
- Emeritus Professor, National Academy of Medical Sciences · Retired Professor and Head, Department of Histopathology, PGIMER
Kim Vaiphei spent her career in the Department of Histopathology at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, rising to Professor and Head, and is now Emeritus Professor of the National Academy of Medical Sciences. Across some thirty-five years she built one of the country's substantial diagnostic and research histopathology practices.
In 2021 she was elected President of the Indian Association of Pathologists and Microbiologists, the discipline's principal national body — a position that recognised a career's accumulated contribution rather than any single result.
Her research has centred on the oesophagus: the behaviour of stem cells in oesophageal mucosa, and the prevalence of human papillomavirus in oesophageal disease. Her published output runs to several hundred papers, and she has served as a guide for the Indian College of Pathologists' post-doctoral certificate courses in histopathology at PGIMER, training the subspecialists who follow her.
She is also one of the relatively few women to have led both a major Indian histopathology department and the national association in the same career.