I am a transplant surgeon in Cambridge, one member of a large team
involved with liver, pancreas, kidney and intestinal transplantation.
Transplant surgery is very different from most of surgery in that it
combines many different roles. One day I may be removing someone's
diseased liver, another curing someone's diabetes. On other days we
may be trying to understand more about how the immune system is
responding to the foreign transplant, and later in the week I might
find myself in clinic with an old friend from 15 years ago whose kidney
transplant I performed, acting more like a GP than a surgeon. Few
areas of medicine in general, and surgery in particular, is so
challenging yet so rewarding, and only rarely outside transplantation
do you get the opportunity to really get to know someone as a patient
and guide them through the stages from waiting to full recovery and
rehabilitation. Transplantation is a fascinating field, and I am proud
to be a part of it.
Away from the operating theatre and wards I can
often be found lying prone on a beach, or squatting against a hedge
with camera in hand trying to catch a shot of wildlife, or sometimes
leaning over the side of a boat trying to identify a whale.
