Dr. A. S. Hariharan — Visiting Consultant in Chennai

Dr. A. S. Hariharan is a Visiting Consultant at Rela Hospital in Chennai, with more than 12 years of experience. His profile records cardiac surgery together with vascular surgery.

His list is weighted toward the aorta. Alongside coronary artery bypass grafting, minimally invasive cardiac surgery and LVAD implantation, he performs aortic root replacement, aortic aneurysm repair and thoracic endovascular aortic repair. Holding both the open and the endovascular approach to an aneurysm on one list means the choice between them can be made on the case rather than on what the surgeon offers.

He holds MBBS, the DNB in general surgery and the DNB in cardiothoracic surgery, so both stages of his surgical training were examined through the national board.

His hospital record traces a clear progression through the grades. He was a senior resident in general surgery at VHS, then senior registrar and resident in cardiothoracic surgery at Railway Hospital, associate consultant in thoracic surgery at Apollo Hospital, and divisional medical officer at the Southern Railway Headquarters Hospital. At SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre he served first as junior and then as senior consultant, before his current visiting consultant post at Rela Hospital in Chennai.

Two railway hospitals among those posts describe part of a career spent in an employer-run health service, which serves a defined population rather than a referral catchment, and the move from resident to senior consultant across six institutions is the ordinary shape of a surgical career made visible.