The Surgeon Who Gave Thousands a Second Chance at Life: The Story of Dr. Sarbeswar Sahariah

On 1 April 1945, in the hilly village of Mangaldai in Darrang district of Assam, a boy named Sarbeswar Sahariah was born into a family of modest means. He studied hard, topped the state in biology in his higher secondary examinations, and went on to earn his MBBS from Gauhati Medical College. Determined to specialise, he moved to the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh, completing his MS in General Surgery in 1975. Further training in experimental transplantation took him to Japan.

While at PGIMER he was part of the early efforts that helped establish renal transplantation in India. A turning point came during the Emergency years when he and colleagues cared for the ailing Jayaprakash Narayan; the limited options available for kidney failure convinced them that India needed its own robust transplant programme. Sahariah dedicated himself to that cause.

In 1981 he moved to Hyderabad as Head of the Organ Transplantation Centre and performed the first successful kidney transplant in Andhra Pradesh (now also Telangana). He went on to carry out the state’s first cadaver-donor transplant and many more thereafter. Over the decades he is credited with more than 3,000 successful renal transplants—among the highest numbers by any single surgeon in the country—along with around 5,000 vascular-access procedures for dialysis patients. He performed the first ten kidney transplants in Assam, introduced laparoscopic donor nephrectomy in India, and even operated successfully with organs from both very young and elderly cadaver donors. He developed transplant programmes at multiple centres across states and has long served as Chief Transplant Surgeon and Urologist at KIMS Hospitals in Hyderabad.

In 2014 the Government of India conferred upon him the Padma Shri for his contributions to medicine. He has also received fellowships from the American College of Surgeons and the International College of Surgeons, membership of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, several oration awards, and an honorary D.Litt from Gauhati University. In recent years he has served as Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya, continuing to guide medical education and advocate strongly for organ donation awareness.

One evening, after yet another successful transplant, a young colleague asked him, “Sir, after thousands of these operations, what still drives you?”

Dr. Sarbeswar Sahariah answered with the quiet conviction of a man who had travelled from a small Assam town to operating theatres across India.

“When a patient who was dying of kidney failure walks out of the hospital and returns to family and work, that is the real measure of success,” he said. “Technology and skill matter, but the greater need is awareness—especially for cadaver donation—so that more lives can be saved. Upholding the trust of ordinary people is the true excellence in medicine. That is why we keep going.”

And so the transplant surgeon from Mangaldai who helped pioneer kidney transplantation in Andhra Pradesh and Assam, who performed thousands of life-saving operations, and who continues to champion organ donation, remains a living reminder that one determined doctor can give countless families a second chance at life.