Sushil Gupta

Vestal - Dr. Sushil Kumar Gupta, M.D., 69, died peacefully at his home on January 21, 2019, following a long battle with progressive supranuclear palsy.

Dr. Gupta was a devoted husband and father, a nationally prominent vascular surgeon, a beloved teacher, a prolific medical researcher, and an inveterate inventor and entrepreneur. He was born in Sonipat, India, in 1949 and was a graduate of S.M. Hindu School and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, where he met Asha in 1966 (in their first-year anatomy group).

After earning their medical degrees, Sushil and Asha married and immigrated to the United States in 1972 with just two suitcases, leading the way for other members of their extended family to come to America. Following an internship in surgery in Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, Dr. Gupta completed his surgical residency at SUNY-Downstate Medical Center, where he also conducted research in immunology and transplantation in the lab of future Nobel laureate Dr. Robert Furchgott, and a fellowship at the Montefiore Medical Center, where he was trained under world-renowned vascular surgeon Frank Veith. While they were both medical residents living in Brooklyn, Sushil and Asha had two sons, Deepak (a public interest lawyer in Washington, DC) and Nirad (an architect and designer in Los Angeles).

Over his distinguished career, Dr. Gupta went on to serve on the faculties of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York (1979-1991, attaining the rank of full Professor of Surgery in 1990, when he was only 38 years old), Harvard Medical School in Boston (1991-1998), and the State University of New York (1998-2006), and published over 100 publications in peer-reviewed medical journals and over 75 chapters and monographs. He became the Chairman of Surgery at Framingham Union Hospital in Framingham, Massachusetts, and, later, at the Guthrie Clinic and Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pennsylvania, overseeing programs at both hospitals that trained a future generation of surgeons. In his later years, Dr. Gupta also became increasingly interested in business and entrepreneurship, earning an Executive MBA in healthcare management from Binghamton University and inventing several surgical and medical devices.

Throughout his life, Dr. Gupta was passionate about a broad range of interests and hobbies—including visual art (especially painting), Hinduism, Hindi folk music, travel, food and wine, crossword puzzles, golf, and lowbrow comedies.

Dr. Gupta is survived by his wife, Asha, of Vestal; his son Deepak and daughter-in law, Molly, of Washington, DC; his son Nirad, of Los Angeles, California; his sister Shashi, of Cortlandt Manor, New York; his sister-in law, Nutan, of Easton, Connecticut; his sister Anuradha, of Chandigarh, India; his brother and sister-in-law Subhash and Bharti, of Hartford, Connecticut; his brother Rakesh, of Chandigarh, India; and his beloved nephews and nieces. He was predeceased by his younger brother, Arun, and by his father and mother, Gyan Chand Gupta and Darsan Devi Gupta.

Funeral services will take place on Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 2pm at the Allen Memorial Home, 511-513 East Main Street, Endicott, New York, (607) 754-0110. In lieu of flowers, a donation in his name may be made to CurePSP (https://www.psp.org).