Dr Cyriac Abby Philips grew up in a house where medicine was a way of life. His father, Dr Philip Augustine, was a pioneer in gastroenterology in Kerala.
From a young age, Cyriac was surrounded by talks of diseases, treatments, and hospitals. Naturally, people expected him to follow the same path. But young Cyriac had different dreams. His heart was drawn towards storytelling, movies, and theatre. He wished to become a screenwriter or an actor.
Medicine, to him, felt like a burden.
However, like many kids of his generation, he was sent to a tough entrance coaching center. Hours of study, endless exams, and pressure finally pushed him into MBBS. Even though he started without passion, something changed during his MBBS years. He discovered a real love for internal medicine. He became fascinated by how the human body works and how diseases affect it.
Slowly, medicine started becoming not just a career but a calling.
On his father's advice, he chose to do his post-graduation in internal medicine from West Bengal. His father told him he would get to see a wide range of diseases there, which would make him a better doctor.
Moving to a new state, adapting to a different culture, and learning a new language was extremely difficult. But these challenges built his strength and made him more resilient. PG life was not easy — the workload was crushing and the responsibility overwhelming. But Dr Cyriac never gave up.
After completing post-graduation, he realized he wanted to specialize even further. Though he admired gastroenterology, he wasn’t fond of the procedural and surgical parts of it.
What he loved more was the clinical side — diagnosing, treating, and understanding complex diseases. This led him to hepatology, the field dealing with liver diseases.
He joined the prestigious Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in Delhi to train further. It took him 15 years, starting from his MBBS in 2001, to finally become a certified hepatologist in 2016.
His journey was filled with hardships, sleepless nights, sacrifices, and endless studying. But his passion kept him moving forward.
When he returned to Kerala, he found that there were hardly any hepatologists. The field was still new, and most patients came to him when their disease had already advanced. Working in hepatology was emotionally draining.
Most of his patients were fighting for their lives, and many times, he had to witness deaths.
One of the most heartbreaking experiences of his career was losing a five-year-old boy to liver failure. The boy had been treated with herbal medicines by his parents who, unknowingly, trusted traditional remedies over proper medical care. This tragedy deeply affected Dr Cyriac.
It made him realize the dangerous consequences of misinformation and blind faith in unscientific treatments. It pushed him to take a strong stand against pseudoscience and advocate fiercely for evidence-based medicine.
The emotional trauma he faced was so heavy that he had to seek psychiatric help to heal. He openly talks about how dealing with suffering, death, and loss took a toll on his mental health — something many doctors are scared to admit.
Through all his struggles, Dr Cyriac strongly believes in the power of research. He often tells young doctors that staying involved in research sharpens your mind, improves critical thinking, and ensures that you always question and improve your practice. Without research, medicine becomes stagnant.
Today, Dr Cyriac Abby Philips is not just a doctor but an inspiration. His journey teaches that if one chooses medicine out of true love for the subject — not just pressure or expectations — then despite the late nights, the failures, the heartbreaks, and the endless trials, it all becomes worth it. The satisfaction of saving lives, fighting for the truth, and making a real difference is unmatched.
His story is a reminder that success is not just about degrees or awards — it’s about passion, resilience, empathy, and the courage to stand for what is right.
(This article was curated by the content and digital team at Humans of Medicare: Siddhant Kashyap, Joanne Roshin, Oshi Sharma and Ria Maheshwari. Views expressed are their own.)
