Khursheed Nowrojee Jeejeebhoy (born August 26, 1935) was a gastroenterologist at the

Toronto General Hospital The Toronto General Hospital (TGH) is a major teaching hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and the flagship campus of University Health Network (UHN). It is located in the Discovery District of Downtown Toronto along University Avenue's Hospital ...

Unity Health Toronto Unity Health Toronto is a Catholic Church and health care, Catholic hospital network serving Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was initially founded in 2017 under the provisional name Our Shared Purpose through the merger of St. Michael's Hospital (Tor ...

and professor of medicine, nutrition and physiology at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

, best known for his pioneering work in the development of

parenteral nutrition Parenteral nutrition (PN) is the feeding of nutritional products to a person intravenously, bypassing the usual process of eating and digestion. The products are made by pharmaceutical compounding companies. The person receives a nutritional mix ...

Biography

Jeejeebhoy was born to a Parsi family in

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

on August 26, 1935, Nowrojee Jeejeebhoy and Gulbanoo Nowrojee (Tarapore) Jeejeebhoy. The family was evacuated to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

by air in a DC-3 ahead of advancing Japanese forces during the

Japanese invasion of Burma The Japanese invasion of Burma was the opening phase of the Burma campaign in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, which took place over four years from 1942 to 1945. During the first year of the campaign (December 1941 to mid-1942) ...

. His father joined the army, and his maternal grandfather Pheroze Khurshetjee Tarapore was recalled to service after he had retired as an officer in the Indian Medical Service. Due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and his family's flight to India as refugees, Jeejeebhoy's schooling was initially very checkered. After his family fled to India, they lived a nomadic life and whether or not he attended school depended on where his father was stationed. However, his maternal grandmother Rattan Tarapore, a medical doctor trained at JJ Hospital Medical School, home schooled him. At age 15 he entered Nirmala College in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

and studied

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

and

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

. At age 17, upon hearing of the excellence of

Christian Medical College Vellore Christian Medical College, Vellore, widely known as CMC, Vellore, is a private, Christian community-run medical school, hospital and research institute. This Institute includes a network of primary, secondary and tertiary care hospitals in a ...

he applied for one of the ten spots available to students not sponsored by a Christian Mission. Entrance was by competitive written exam and interview. He was the first one called to fill one of the ten spots. He convocated in February 1959, capturing nine of ten gold medals. His graduate medical training was in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. He is married and had three children.

Works

* ''Total Parenteral Nutrition in the Hospital and at Home'', (ISBN-13: 978-1315898230) - Published in 2017

References

1935 births Living people Academic staff of the University of Toronto Canadian people of Parsi descent Parsi people Burmese physicians People from Yangon Gastroenterologists 20th-century Burmese physicians 21st-century Burmese physicians Kirori Mal College alumni {{Canada-med-bio-stub