New Delhi: Lieutenant General Sadhna Saxena Nair on Thursday took over as the Director General Medical Services (Army), becoming the first woman to be appointed to the top position, the army announced. She was earlier the first woman doctor to be appointed Director General Hospital Services (Armed Forces).

She graduated from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune with a distinguished academic record and was commissioned into the Army Medical Corps in December 1985, the army statement said.

To be sure, three-star women doctors have held the equivalent posts in the air force and navy.

Nair holds a post graduate degree in family medicine, diplomas in maternal and child health and health care management and has also undergone two-year training in medical informatics at AIIMS, New Delhi.

She trained in CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) warfare with the Israeli Defence Forces and in military medical ethics with the Swiss Armed Forces, the statement added.

She was also the first woman principal medical officer of Western Air Command and the IAF’s Training Command.

To be sure, military doctors can be posted from one service to another and don the rank the service.

She was nominated as an expert member of the Dr Kasturirangan committee for drafting part of the medical education component of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2019.

She is married to Air Marshal KP Nair (Retd) and has the unique distinction of being a daughter and sister of military doctors, and the wife and mother of IAF fighter pilots.

(With Input From Agencies)