As a junior doctor walking the halls of the Christian Medical College Hospital Vellore, Tamilnadu, India, Dr Heraganahally crossed paths with a Chief (king) who would visit from a nearby island of Tamil Nādu seeking treatment for sleep apnoea.

He said the Chief would be nodding off whenever the doctors visited during their rounds.

Back then they didn’t have the technology in India that was available in other countries to treat him – instead they had to send him on his way with medication.

Eventually he came to Australia spurred on by not only the medical opportunities he would have here but also the chance to see Australia’s home of cricket – the Sydney Cricket Ground.

“That was my inspiration and watching cricket played in Sydney and Melbourne and Adelaide. When we came to Australia in 2003 I worked in Adelaide at Modbury Public Hospital thinking that I may not get another job anywhere in Australia.”

During his yearlong contract he and his wife and child travelled across Australia seeing the sights, and as many cricket ovals and matches as possible, cheering for India, and Australia if not playing against India.

He then joined the Flinders Medical Centre where he worked from 2004 to 2011 before moving North to Darwin.

During his time at the Flinders Medical Centre he developed a mannequin that allows trainee medical doctors to practice draining fluid from the chest. His invention means doctors around the world can cheaply train to do this procedure.

“This has been developed for people in developing countries because I'm from India, I know how we struggle with training programs,” he said.

Darwin proved enticing for Dr Heraganahally due to the significant amount of respiratory and sleep disorders in the NT.

While the initial move was a shock, Dr Heraganahally soon dove into research after realising there was next to no studies about Indigenous people with respiratory problems.

“The last paper, which was published in Australia, for Indigenous populations, was from a radiologist from Royal Darwin Hospital in the eighties, just on a chest x-ray. There is nothing in the literature for 25 years,” he said.

“There's a 25-year gap in our knowledge on what an Indigenous population x-ray or CT scan looks like.

 “We took 400 Indigenous patients CT scans and describe what is your CT scan findings in Indigenous population. It's not a great study, but at least we are showing this is the problem they have,” he said.

He said it was still not known what the normal lung function capacity of Indigenous patients is.

He is working on a study to find the lung capacity of Indigenous patients, which will help when treating Indigenous people who present with lung problems.

He also likes to teach students – giving lectures and taking on students for placement at the respiratory and sleep service at Royal Darwin Hospital. Students also accompany him when he undertakes clinics in remote communities.

While teaching these students, he encourages them to see the benefit in undertaking research.

“The medical students rather than just simply doing some clinical audits and stuff like that they are to come up with innovation, that's my vision. These guys have to come up with ideas where they can change practice,” he said.

Following one of his lectures for NTMP medical students on sleep apnoea among Indigenous people, three students came with an innovative idea to develop a sleepiness scale specific for Indigenous people named “Top End Sleepiness Scale” (TESS). This research was assessed to be the best and received an award in the international sleep conference, Sydney, Australia in 2019 and was published in a reputed international journal.  

Dr Heraganahally will continue to teach and advocate for better respiratory health outcomes for Indigenous Australians.