In the world Jayashree Seolekar entered in 1973, anaesthesiology was considered a support specialty — the discipline that put patients to sleep so that surgeons could do the interesting work. Jayashree spent four decades dismantling that hierarchy, one neuroanesthesia case at a time, until she was running the operations of one of western India’s most respected hospital groups.
She never announced the dismantling. She simply did the work.
Three Cities, One Education
Jayashree began her schooling in Pune. Circumstances brought her to Nagpur, where she enrolled at the Institute of Science for her pre-university studies and lived with Dr. Gopalakrishnan, a family friend and the then Director of the college. She completed three academic sessions at GMC Nagpur — enough to pass her first MBBS — before returning to Pune.
She was one of four students who left GMC Nagpur after first MBBS. The others were Rajan Bindu (Pathology, GMC Aurangabad), the late Anil Sharma (Cardiology, Grant Medical College, Mumbai), and Pradeep Deshpande (Pharmacology, BJ Medical College, Pune). All four went on to distinguished careers; all four carried something of GMC Nagpur with them into what came next.
At BJ Medical College, Pune, Jayashree completed her MBBS and then her MD in Anaesthesiology in 1981. She joined the Christian Medical College as a lecturer in Anaesthesiology — a position she held until 1985, when she returned to Pune.
Neurosurgery’s Other Half
Back in Pune, Jayashree found her niche: neuroanesthesia. She joined the Pune Institute of Neurology from its founding in 1994 — an institution built alongside her husband, Dr. Charudatta Apte, a neurosurgeon trained at CMC Vellore who had returned to Pune to practise.
Neuroanesthesia is exacting. The brain tolerates neither hypoxia nor hypercapnia; intracranial pressure must be managed with precision; the margin between adequate anaesthesia and neurological compromise is narrow. Jayashree mastered this field at a time when neuroanesthesia in India was largely self-taught, when the literature was sparse and the equipment improvised. She built the anaesthesia protocols that made Dr. Apte’s surgical practice possible.
In 2004, the Pune Institute of Neurology became part of Sahyadri Hospitals — a larger canvas, more resources, and a correspondingly larger administrative responsibility. Jayashree became head of Anaesthesiology at Sahyadri, then its Chief Executive Officer, then its Executive Director of Medical Services. She stepped back from operations in 2020 but retains the Executive Director designation.
Sahyadri has treated more than a million patients. The institutional culture it embodies — “we care, we cure, we help people endure” — was shaped in part by the woman who ran its operations for more than a decade.
An Unusual Household
The Apte family has attracted attention beyond medicine. Radhika Apte — Jayashree’s daughter, an Economics and Mathematics graduate from Fergusson College, Pune — became a film actress of considerable reputation, known for her work across Indian and international cinema. Ketan Apte, the elder son, holds an MBBS from JSS Medical College, Mysore, and a postgraduate diploma in Hospital and Healthcare Management from IIHMR University, Jaipur; he is Chief Executive Officer of Accord Hospital, Pune.
A household that produced a neurosurgeon, a neuroanesthesiologist, a film actress, and a hospital CEO is not easily described. What runs through all four lives is seriousness: about craft, about institution-building, about the work itself.
A Note on Beginnings
Among the class of 1973, Jayashree occupies a particular place: she was present for the beginning — the first MBBS, the dissection halls, the early friendships — but built her career elsewhere. The imprint of GMC Nagpur is real, even if the years were few. The rigour of those early clinical years, the culture of the batch, the friendships formed in the Institute of Science — these stayed with her through BJ Medical College, through CMC Vellore’s influence via her husband, through the long arc of Sahyadri.
What began on the campus of Government Medical College, Nagpur, in 1973, ended — or rather continued — in the executive offices of a hospital group that now shapes medical care for a significant portion of western Maharashtra. That trajectory was not designed. It accumulated, decision by decision, over five decades.