Most people who have had an operation remember their surgeon. Far fewer remember the doctor at the head of the table, watching every heartbeat and every breath until they woke up. At District Hospital, Bagalkote, that doctor has been Dr. Arunkumar Halli for more than 20,000 operations.
District hospitals carry much of India’s public surgical and emergency load, often with lean specialist teams. When NITI Aayog assessed 707 of them, only 27% met the benchmark of 29 doctors per 100 beds. In Bagalkote, Dr. Arunkumar brings anaesthesia, intensive care and pain medicine of a standard usually found in large city hospitals.
For bringing that depth of care to patients who rely on the government health system, and for training the doctors who will carry it further, he earns his place among India’s Top Anesthesiologists of the Year – 2026.
Drawn by Precision and Composure
Dr. Arunkumar Halli’s interest in anaesthesiology took shape during his internship. He was struck by the precision, adaptability and composure the specialty demands, and by how anaesthesiologists anticipate complications and act within seconds when a patient’s condition changes.
He trained at Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences, Ballari, now Ballari Medical College and Research Centre, where he earned his Diploma in Anaesthesia in 2018. There he learnt under Prof. S. Bala Bhaskar, former Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Journal of Anaesthesia and former National President of the Indian Society of Anaesthesiologists, whose passion for the specialty reinforced his own.
A Short Stay That Became a Calling
Early in his career, Dr. Arunkumar lost his father, Pandit Halli, to a sudden cardiac arrest. He returned to Bagalkote to complete his father’s pending official responsibilities, and chose to stay. That decision became the foundation of his career as an anaesthesiologist, intensivist and pain physician, built on the trust of patients and colleagues in the district.
His mother, Smt. Vijayalaxmi P. Halli, later founded Halli Nursing Home, a multispeciality hospital, in his father’s memory. “I have achieved milestones that I value deeply,” he says, “but the one person I always wished could have witnessed this journey was my father.”
Three Disciplines, One Practice
His day begins with pre-operative evaluation, assessing systemic risk, anticipating difficult airways and tailoring an anaesthetic plan for each patient. In theatre, he manages depth of anaesthesia, haemodynamics, ventilation, fluids and multimodal analgesia. His work then extends to recovery, ICU rounds and pain management.
His expertise includes ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia and difficult airway management, including blind nasal intubation in selected cases. As an interventional pain physician, he performs fluoroscopy-guided transforaminal and interlaminar epidural steroid injections, sacroiliac joint injections and interventions for cancer pain. He also performs ultrasound-guided joint interventions for the shoulder, hip and knee, and sympathetic blocks including stellate ganglion, lumbar sympathetic and coeliac plexus blocks.
He teaches DNB residents and was invited as a Distinguished Speaker at the World Critical Care and Anesthesiology Conference 2025 in Bangkok. He is equally committed to raising public awareness of the anaesthesiologist’s role. “The surgeon operates on the disease,” he says. “The anaesthesiologist safeguards the patient through the entire physiological journey of surgery.”
Through the Pandemic’s Hardest Chapter
The defining chapter of his career came with COVID-19, when he served as Head of the ICU and Lead Intensivist at a dedicated district COVID hospital. Protocols changed rapidly, and decisions for patients with severe respiratory failure and multi-organ involvement had to be made in real time.
Then came mucormycosis. He provided anaesthesia for patients already weakened by viral pneumonia, high-dose steroids and complex metabolic derangements, often with friable airways and little oxygen reserve. Many were from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and relied on the government health system.
“Guiding those critically ill patients through the operating theatre and safely back out of the intensive care unit underscored precisely why anaesthesiologists exist,” he says.
Teaching One, Treating Thousands
Dr. Arunkumar Halli’s plans centre on interventional pain medicine, stronger intensive care capabilities and resident education. His residents have come from across Karnataka and from Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. “Teaching one doctor well can ultimately mean caring for thousands of patients,” he says.
With the district hospital now attached to the new Bagalkote Medical College and Research Institute, he sees advanced care reaching a vast rural and semi-urban population. He points to point-of-care ultrasound, target-controlled infusions, video laryngoscopes and lung-protective ventilation as proven gains in safety, and to AI-assisted ultrasound and Karnataka’s 10BedICU tele-ICU network as the next step.
Thinking Several Moves Ahead
A chess player since school, Dr. Arunkumar finds the game close to anaesthesia. “You are constantly asking yourself what could happen next, and what you will do if it happens,” he says. He also reads widely on strategy, negotiation and leadership.
Family is his grounding. His wife, Dr. Pragnya Arunkumar Halli, is a gynaecologist, laparoscopic surgeon and fertility specialist, and Managing Director of Halli Nursing Home. For him, balance means “being completely present wherever I am”.
His advice to young doctors is to look inward first. “Do not choose a specialty based solely on social prestige, peer trends or assumptions about lifestyle,” he says. “Choose a specialty that fits your personality.”
