Dr. Vaibhav Patil — Director of Hepatology in Chennai

Dr. Vaibhav Patil is Director of Hepatology at Rela Hospital in Chennai, with more than 12 years of experience. His profile records gastroenterology and hepatobiliary medicine together with liver transplant medicine.

The liver is the centre of his list. He manages liver cirrhosis, chronic liver disease, chronic hepatitis B and C, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, autoimmune liver diseases, portal hypertension and refractory ascites. He also performs ERCP and GI stenting and manages chronic pancreatitis, pancreatic cysts and congenital GI disorders.

His route into hepatology is unusual in starting with surgery. He read MBBS at Topiwala National Medical College and Nair Hospital in Mumbai in 2005 and took a diploma in diabetology at the same institution in 2009, then the DNB in general surgery through the National Board of Examinations in 2012 and the DNB in medical gastroenterology through the same board in 2017. His fellowship in transplant hepatology was at Gleneagles Global Hospital in Chennai, running from Jan to Sept 2018.

His hospital record is the most international part of his profile. Alongside Dr. Rela Institute and Medical Centre and the Institute of Liver Disease and Transplantation at Global Hospitals, both in Chennai, he has been at the University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire, at the South West Liver Unit at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, at Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Institute of Biomedical Research at the University of Birmingham, and at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane.

Several of those overseas posts are at liver units or transplant centres, which places most of his post-qualification career inside the field his present directorship covers.