Parminder Walia

I joined LHMC in 1970 and graduated in 1974. Shortly after my marriage, I came to the US and joined the US Army in the medical corps followed by a residency in Internal Medicine from Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma Washington. Subsequently I did a Fellowship in Gastroenterology from Walter Reed Army Medical Center , Washington DC. I have the proud distinction of being the first female physician to do fellowship in Gastroenterology at the prestigious Walter Reed Army Medical center . Over the years I served in various Army hospitals, as a clinician in different leadership roles: Chief Dept of medicine, Chief Gastroenterology, and Deputy Commander of Clinical services.

I retired after 32 years of active duty service in the rank of Colonel. I have the honor of being the longest serving female physician of Indian origin in the US Army.

My husband Yash served in the US Navy as a senior Engineer for over 25 yrs. We have 3 children, two are physicians and one is in IT sector. Yash and I strongly feel that we have been able to live a nice comfortable life style because of the great education we received in our professional schools in India. Yash from IIT Madras and I from LHMC.

As a token of thanks we wanted to help enable underprivileged deserving students to get the same opportunity that we got in life.

My thanks to Madhu Ahluwalia, Asha Mishra, Sudha Gupta and KumKum Sood Bhasin for helping to create a solid foundation to establish a transparent process to sponsor needy students obtain an education at LHMC with the aid of Foundation for Excellence.

My vision is to enable deserving students from low socio economic strata to reach their full potential by acquiring world class education which will enable them succeed and prosper in life. I am delighted to see that we sponsored 9 students from the 2020 freshers group and that we are awaiting the students who qualify for the 2021 batch. I encourage other alumni who are able to join us in this worthwhile cause.