Workforce, training and education
East of England
Mr C Ng

Mr Ng graduated in 1993 from Trinity College, Dublin. He completed his basic surgical training in East Yorkshire. His cardiothoracic surgery training began in 2000 and was based entirely at Papworth Hospital with short stints in Norwich and Oxford. He undertook a two-year period of research in transplantation tolerance at the Transplantation Biology Research Centre of Harvard University from 2005 to 2007.

He was appointed as a locum consultant surgeon at Papworth in 2009 before becoming a substantive appointment in Feb 2011. He has experience in all aspects of adult cardiac surgery. Specialist interest includes high-risk surgery in the sick elderly population, aortic surgery specifically acute aortic dissection emergencies and pulmonary endarterectomy surgery. He is one of four surgeons in the national pulmonary endarterectomy programme at Papworth.

Mr R De Silva

Mr De Silva returned to Papworth after practicing as a consultant in Oxford University Hospital for 4 years. He had previously spent 6 years training at Papworth, and so came back to a familiar environment in which he is able to pursue his clinical and research interests. Mr De Silva has considerable expertise in adult cardiac surgery, with a particular interest in minimal access surgery, aortic and aortic valve surgery, hybrid and off pump revascularization. He has a keen interest in education and training, having previously run the cardiothoracic training programme in Oxford. He has published widely, and has particular research interests in the inflammatory effects of cardiopulmonary bypass, the pathogenesis of nitric oxide in cardiovascular disease, and safety in cardiac surgery.

Mr Y Abu-Omar

Mr. Abu-Omar undertook his training in cardiothoracic surgery at Papworth, Oxford and London. Prior to that, he spent 3 years completing a research project investigating cerebral injury following cardiac surgery, and obtaining a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) at the University of Oxford.

Mr. Abu-Omar performs the full range of adult cardiac operations. His areas of interest include minimally invasive surgery, mitral valve surgery, coronary revascularization and surgery for atrial fibrillation. He is also a member of the transplant team at Papworth.

His research interests include investigating the efficacy of surgery for atrial fibrillation, the investigation of end-organ injury following cardiac surgery and beating-heart surgery.
He has published widely and is currently the co-editor of two forthcoming textbooks. He also has a major interest in education and training.

Mr A Ali

Ayyaz Ali received his medical degree from the University of Leicester. He trained in cardiothoracic surgery at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, UK. He received further training in heart transplantation, lung transplantation and mechanical circulatory support devices for heart failure at two of the world’s largest thoracic transplant centers, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A) and Duke University Medical Center (Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A.).  In addition to cardiac and transplant surgery, he has a strong background in both clinical and basic science research. He undertook research into the feasibility of heart transplantation from donors who suffer circulatory arrest at Stanford University in California. This work has been published in important medical journals and presented at numerous international meetings.  Mr. Ali holds an appointment as an associate research scientist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, U.S.A, where he is actively researching mechanisms of recovery in the injured heart and lung with the use of artificial circulatory support devices.

Mr M Balakrishnan

Mr. Mahesh undertook his training in cardiothoracic surgery at Papworth Hospital and Harefield Hospital. He specialised in heart and lung transplantation, and implantation of ventricular assist devices, at the University Of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, USA, and at Papworth Hospital. Prior to that, he completed a research project investigating the role of autoantibodies in mediating acute and chronic rejection in heart transplant recipients, and obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) at Imperial College, University of London. He trained in surgery in India's premier medical institution [All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi]. He completed a research project in treatment of vascular malformations. Working across many centres has given him the opportunity to broaden his expertise and amalgamate best practices from across these hospitals.

Mr. Mahesh performs the full range of adult cardiac operations. His areas of interest and expertise include mitral valve surgery, coronary revascularization, aortic surgery, minimally invasive surgery, surgery for atrial fibrillation, heart and lung transplantation and ventricular assist devices. He is a member of the transplant team at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital, and is pioneering development of lung transplantation in Scotland.

His research interests include role of antibody mediated rejection in affecting outcomes following heart transplantation, and right ventricular function following heart transplantation and implantation of left ventricular assist devices.

He has published widely and these are available on pubmed. He also has a major interest in education and training.

Mrs C Sudarshan

Born in Kandy, Sri Lanka, Mrs Sudarshan qualified as a Doctor from Southampton. Whilst a large part of her Cardiothoracic Higher Surgical Training came from Papworth, the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne have played a significant part in shaping it. She was appointed as a Consultant Surgeon in Papworth in August 2006.  

Mrs Sudarshan is the Clinical Lead for the Cardiothoracic Organ Retrieval Service of Papworth Hospital NHS Trust. She is an Assigned Educational Supervisor for three Specialist Registrars attached to the East of England Deanery from the National Training Programme in Cardiothoracic Surgery. She is the clinical supervisor for the Transplant Surgical Fellows. She is the Consultant Cardiac Surgical Lead for the Alert Team Nurses.

Mr J Dunning

Mr Dunning was schooled in Edinburgh at George Watson’s College, and attended University in St Andrew’s and Manchester, qualifying BSc in 1981 and MB, ChB in 1984. Subsequently his general surgical training took place in Manchester and Leicester, with specialist Cardiothoracic training in Groby Road Hospital, Leicester, Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, and The John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

Mr Dunning was appointed to a Consultant Surgeon’s position at Papworth in 1994, and subsequently spent nearly four years as Clinical Director of the Cardiothoracic Surgical unit at The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane, before returning to Papworth in September 2007.

His practice includes all areas of adult cardiothoracic surgery, with major interests in cardiopulmonary transplantation, mechanical circulatory support, pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary endarterectomy, and surgery of the thoracic aorta.

Mr Dunning established the National pulmonary endarterectomy programme in 1996.

Mr S Tsui

Mr. Tsui has been a Consultant Surgeon at Papworth Hospital since 1998. His clinical interests include: 

a. Aortic valve & aortic root surgery
b. Pulmonary Endarterectomy
c. Trans-catheter Heart Valve treatments (TAVI program)
d. Surgical treatment of end-stage heart diseases including:
i. Heart transplantation 
ii. Ventricular Assist Devices (VADs)
e. Surgical treatment of end-stage lung diseases including:
i. Lung transplantation
ii. ECMO & Artificial lungs

Research Interests
1. Heart valve prostheses
2. Optimisation of donor multi-organ donors
3. Development of ventricular assist devices
4. Extra-corporeal re-conditioning of donor organs

Professional Profile
Mr Tsui is the Clinical Director of the Transplant Service and is the Clinical Lead for the Mechanical Circulatory Support Device Programme at Papworth. He is also the Regional Training Programme Director and Chairman of the Specialty Training Committee for Cardiothoracic Surgery at the East of England Deanery.

His national duties include:

1) Chairman of the Cardiothoracic Advisory Group (CTAG), at NHS Blood & Transplant
2) Member of the Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) forum, National Commissioning Group (NCG)
3) Examiner on the Intercollegiate Board for the FCRS (C-Th) exam
4) Specialist Advisor to the NICE Interventional Procedures Advisory Committee 2010-13

Clinical Outcomes
To view Mr Tsui's clinical outcomes, please click on this link. This will take you to the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery website which is not part of the Papworth Hospital website.

Education and Training
Bachelor of Arts 1985 University of Cambridge
Master of Arts   1987 University of Cambridge
Bachelor of Medicine &
Bachelor of Surgery 1988 University of Cambridge
F.R.C.S. (Eng.) 1992 Fellowship of Royal College of Surgeons of England
Doctor of Medicine 1995 University of Cambridge
F.R.C.S. (C-Th) 1997 Inter-collegiate Specialty Board in Cardiothoracic Surgery

Mr T Routledge

Mr Tom Routledge is consultant thoracic surgeon and honorary lecturer at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals / King's College School of Medicine. He joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust as a consultant in 2007. Previously, he held the post of senior fellowship in thoracic surgery at the internationally renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, where he worked for one year from 2006 to 2007.

  • Registrar training scheme in cardiothoracic surgery, Papworth Hospital, Cambridge 2001-2006 (FRCS CTh)

  • SHO surgical rotation training scheme- London 1998-2001 MRCS

  • Merton College, University of Oxford 1994-1997 Clinical medicine course (BM BCh)

  • Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 1991-1994 1st class degree in medical sciences  (MA)
  • FRCS gold medal 2007

Mr F Wells

Initially trained in London and the United States, Mr Wells has worked at Papworth Hospital as a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon since 1986. His specialist area of cardiac surgical interest is the management of all forms of heart valve disease, especially mitral valve reconstruction.

Mr Wells has the largest experience in the United Kingdom and among the largest in the world with over 3,000 cases completed achieving a near 100% repair rate for leaking mitral valves with mortality at less than 1.0% for first time procedures. His aim is to achieve a normally functioning valve. He also has an interest in aortic valve repair and surgery of the aorta.

In his thoracic practice, Mr Wells offers a full range of surgical procedures for lung cancer and all benign diseases in the chest. This includes hyperhydrosis, thoracic outlet syndrome and pectus deformities.

Mr S Large

Stephen Large was appointed to Papworth Hospital in 1989 with a specialist interest in surgery for ventricular tachycardia. His early interest in medical student education led to a Cambridge University appointment as Associate Lecturer in the Department of Medicine and on to become clinical sub-dean for cardiac and thoracic services. He was awarded the diploma of Physician as Educator- RCP by the Royal College of Physicians in 2001 after becoming a fellow five years earlier. He ran the heart transplant service from appointment to the end of 2008 developing the national mechanical heart assist programme in 2001 through his particular interest in the failing human heart. His research interest lies in this area and his team are pursuing the possibilities of expanding the human donor heart pool through collaboration with the clinical transplant team in Cambridge, Stanford University, California and the Canadian Research Centre in Winnipeg. An additional fascination with management led him to achieve an MBA through the Open University in 2000 and to chair the Cardiac Directorate for five years until 2007. He now represents the speciality on the Interventional Advisory Committee of NICE, the HTA Interventional committee and is lead investigator of HTA observational study ETTAA (5 years from July 2013  value £1.7 million.

Mr R Sayeed

Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge (BA 1988, MA 1992)
Oxford University Medical School (BM BCh 1991)

Basic surgical and medical training 1992-1997 (MRCP 1995, FRCS(Eng.) 1995)
MRC Clinical Training Fellow, Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge 1998-2001 (PhD 2005)

East Anglian Cardiothoracic Surgery training programme 1997-2006 (FRCS(C-Th) 2005)
Fellowship in Thoracic Surgery & Lung Transplantation, Toronto General Hospital, University of Toronto 2005-2006

Mr S Hunter

Senior Registrar, Papworth Hosp, Cambridge (1994 - 1997)

Mr Shakil Farid

Mr Shakil Farid undertook training in cardiothoracic surgery at Papworth between 2012 - 2018

He was appointed to a substantive consultant post in Oxford in 2018

Miss Alia Noorani

Miss Alia Noorani undertook training in cardiothoracic surgery at Papworth between 2011 - 2017

She was appointed to a consultant post at Kings in 2017

Mr John Taghavi

Mr John Taghavi was an NTN in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Papworth between 2011 - 2017, during this time he performed >500 cardiac cases as primary surgeon. Following this he undertook a post CCT fellowship in Pulmonary Endarterectomy surgery Papworth.

He was appointed to a substantive consultant post at Royal Papworth Hospital in 2018.

Miss Swetha Iyer

Swetha was a trainee at Royal Papworth Hospital between 2013 - 2020

She was appointed as a locum consultant in Cardiac surgery at Papworth in 2020

Mr Umar Rafiq

Mr Rafiq was a trainee at Royal Papworth Hospital between 2014 and 2020

He was appointed as a locum consultant Cardiac surgeon in 2020

Saturday, 13 June, 2020
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