The Vascular and Renal Transplantation Surgery Department of Royal North Shore Hospital offers a great training opportunity in renal transplantation, access surgery and complex vascular / endovascular management of dialysis patients. The primary role of the Surgical Transplant Fellow will be in all aspects of work-up and management of living and deceased donor kidney transplantation patients. They are involved with weekly pre-transplant assessment clinics and running of our fortnightly surgical transplant multi-disciplinary meetings. They are also involved with providing for the post-operative care of the patients, under the supervision of the transplant surgeons and in conjunction with our nephrology colleagues. There is also a Vascular Surgery SET trainee whose primary responsibility is management of Vascular Surgery patients. The unit performs around 50 kidney transplants per year, with the largest volume of living donor transplants in Australia/New Zealand. In 2023; the unit performed 21 living donation transplants. There is >100 major access surgeries performed including autogenous access, prosthetic and complex endovascular management of access care.

The Fellow would also participate in retrieval surgeries based on experience and flexibility, particularly those undertake in Royal North Shore. One transplant surgeon in the unit is also involved with routine retrieval work across NSW in conjunction with Westmead / RPA. Deceased donor procurement in NSW is shared 50:50 between RPA and Westmead Hospital. In 2015, there were approximately 130 deceased organ donors in NSW. There is supervised exposure to both kidney-only and multi-organ donation to enable the Fellow to learn the procedures.

The Department is actively involved in Renal Transplant research with a particular interest in the overlap between Renal Transplant Surgery and Vascular Surgery. The Surgical Transplant Fellow would be expected to be involved in these research projects and would be encouraged to develop further research projects.

Although the Fellow is not required in routine vascular surgery, there is sufficient flexibility depending on their interest to participate in peripheral revascularisation procedures and complex open / endo aortic surgeries if they desire. The Department is involved in many aspects of complex Vascular Surgery treatments with a particular interest in the use and research of aortic and peripheral arterial reconstructive techniques and devices.