TUH makes history as kidney transplant surgeon arrives

The North Queensland Kidney Transplant Service (NQKTS) at Townsville University Hospital is one step closer to its first organ transplant with the arrival of transplant surgeon Dr Nikhil Mahajan.
Dr Mahajan, who was born and trained in India, recently arrived in the city via John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle and Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
“I was in India at a workshop when I saw the Townsville role advertised,” he said.
“I called my wife and told her I had just seen a job that completely aligned with my specialty and was an opportunity to set up a new unit, something that comes along once in a lifetime.
“I wanted to be part of creating history.”
Dr Mahajan brings 12 years of experience in transplant surgery to Townsville University Hospital having worked on both sides of the globe treating medically and culturally diverse patients.
“The opportunity to make a difference in patients’ lives was a major drawcard for Townsville,” he said.
“The feeling of giving back to the community is so important to me and being a transplant surgeon helps me achieve that even more as it, quite literally, means giving people back their lives.
“The team here has been so welcoming, and they have done so much hard work in developing this service and I’m very excited for the future and our first patient.”
Dr Mahajan did his medical degree in Gujarat on India’s west coast and general surgical training in the country’s capital, Delhi, before embarking on his transplant journey in 2013.
“I trained at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh,
one of most prestigious and busiest public transplant centres of the country,” he said.
“This institute is the best in India for transplant training doing around 300 transplants each year,” he said.
“As the majority of transplants in India are from living donors, it gave me the opportunity to get trained in laparoscopic donor nephrectomy a skill very difficult to attain in Australia which has a limited number of living donor surgeries.”
Dr Mahajan said moving abroad was not part of his life plan.
“I wanted to work and serve in India,” he said.
“I took up a fellowship at John Hunter in 2016 with the intention of broadening my surgical experience and had planned to return in a year’s time.
“Little did I know back then that destiny had different plans for me and here I am”.
Clinical lead NQKTS Dr Michelle Harfield said recruitment to the service was ongoing with the unit expected to open in the coming months.
“It’s been a huge coup securing Dr Mahajan and we’re delighted to have him here working with us as we move toward the official opening of the unit,” she said.