Dr. S. Sahariah

About Dr. S. Sahariah

Padma Shri Dr. Sarbeswar Sahariah — known simply as ‘Dr. Sahariah’ in transplant circles across India — is the Chief Transplant Surgeon and Urologist at KIMS Institute of Renal Sciences & Advanced Urology, Secunderabad, and the founding surgeon of kidney transplantation in Andhra Pradesh. With 3,500+ kidney transplants to his credit across 50+ years of practice, he holds one of the largest personal transplant volumes by a single surgeon in the history of Indian medicine.

Born in 1945 in Mangaldai, Assam, and educated with a Government of Assam scholarship at Gauhati Medical College, Dr. Sahariah stood 4th in university order of merit in his MBBS examination. Unable to find adequate postgraduate training in Assam, he moved to New Delhi — completing his MS in General Surgery at PGIMER, Chandigarh, with a Bronze Medal in 1973. At PGIMER he trained directly under the late Prof R.V.S. Yadav and Prof K.S. Chugh — both Padma Shri awardees — from the very first year of PGI's renal transplant programme in 1973. He remained at PGIMER for nearly a decade across multiple roles: Senior Resident, Pool Officer under CSIR, and Lecturer in Renal Transplantation.

In 1981, Dr. Sahariah joined as Reader and Renal Transplant Surgeon at the Organ Transplantation Centre, Institute of Genetics, Osmania University, Hyderabad — the first public-sector organ transplant centre in India. Within weeks of joining, in May 1981, he performed the first successful kidney transplant in the state of Andhra Pradesh — an operation that opened kidney transplantation to an entire state that had no transplant programme until that point. He subsequently initiated renal transplant programmes at virtually every major hospital in Hyderabad, across Andhra Pradesh, and across North East India — 28 institutions in total — making him, by any measure, the founding architect of kidney transplantation in this part of the country.

His national firsts include: the first laparoscopic donor nephrectomy in India (1998) — making India one of the early countries to adopt minimally invasive living donor surgery; the first renal transplantation in a rural-based medical college hospital in India (Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Wardha, 2000); and the first cadaver kidney transplant in Andhra Pradesh. He performed the first ten successful kidney transplants in the state of Assam, establishing the programme in Dibrugarh and Guwahati between 1992 and 2003. He has performed over 5,000 surgeries for vascular access — AV fistulas, AV shunts, vascular graft implantation and CAPD catheter placement for peritoneal dialysis — a volume that reflects the parallel foundation of dialysis access alongside transplantation.

In recognition of this lifetime of contribution to Indian medicine, the President of India conferred on Dr. Sahariah the Padma Shri — the nation's fourth-highest civilian honour — in 2014. He also served as President of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation (2006-2008), as Director / Vice-Chairman of KIMS Secunderabad from 2004 to 2016 — helping to build KIMS into one of Hyderabad's leading nephrology, urology and transplant centres — and currently also serves as Pro Vice Chancellor at PA Sangma International Medical College, USTM, Meghalaya.