SPEAKER PROFILES:

DR RIAZ KASMANI

Dr. Riaz is currently based in Mombasa, practicing as a Medical Oncologist.

He headed the Oncological department at AgaKhan Hospital, Mombasa.  He currently has a busy practice, with offices based at AgaKhan Hospital, Mombasa Hospital and Mombasa Cancer Centre.  He is a visiting consultant at all the major hospitals in Mombasa, Kenya.

Dr. Riaz has a deep interest in research and has published in renowned oncological journals and has also been a speaker in many national and international conferences. Dr.  Riaz completed his MMed in Internal Medicine at the University of Nairobi and worked as a consultant physician in the Ministry of Health before joining AgaKhan Hospital – Mombasa in 2012.

He then proceeded for sub-specialization in Medical Oncology to Tata Memorial Hospital – Mumbai, India.  Tata Hospital is a world-renowned hospital and the largest and most prestigious oncology center in Asia, with a lot of research work undergoing.  After completing his training, Dr. Riaz worked at the oncology clinic at Kenyatta National Hospital. Dr. Riaz further did intensive training in Palliative Care at the Marie Currie Institute in Paris, France.

Dr. Riaz is registered as a specialist in Oncology by the KMPD board. Dr. Riaz has been awarded a founding fellowship in the faculty of Internal Medicine by the East Central and Southern Africa College of Physicians (ESACOP)

His memberships to international organisations include ASCO, ESMO, AORTIC. He is also a member of KESHO, KAP, KMA and holds various honorary posts in KMA and KAP.

Dr. Karan R. K. Gandhi

Consultant General and Hepatobiliary Surgeon, Full-time faculty

Department of Surgery, Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi

Dr. Gandhi graduated from The University of Nairobi to receive his medical degree in 2009 and did a year of internship at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi (AKUH, N) in 2010. He began his surgical training at the University of Nairobi in 2011 and then moved to the University of Cape Town in 2013. He qualified as a Fellow of the College of Surgeons of South Africa in 2018 and then went on to complete his subspecialist certificate training in Surgical Gastroenterology, specifically Hepato-Pancreatico-Biliary (HPB) Surgery, in 2020. He also received a Masters degree in Surgery (MMed) from the University of Cape Town in 2020. In the same year, Dr. Gandhi was also selected to represent Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the IHPBA 2020 International Fellows Retreat in Melbourne, Australia. His main clinical interests lie in Hepatic, Pancreatic, and Biliary surgery, as well as gastrointestinal surgery, advanced endoscopy, ERCP, and laparoscopy. Within the realm of HPB surgery, his primary focus has been on one of the most neglected diseases in the region, namely hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the Global Surgery 2030 document published by The Lancet Commission in 2015, eastern, western, and central SSA were identified as the regions in the world with the greatest unmet needs in surgical care, and in a strange coincidence, these are also the regions in SSA with the highest HCC incidence.

Dr. Gandhi has recently joined the AKUHN as a full-time faculty member in the Department of General Surgery, with a view to pioneering and developing HPB Surgery in Kenya, East Africa, and SSA as a whole. He sees himself as one of a new generation of HPB surgeons that have a vision of changing the situation in SSA, where delivering a surgical service is hampered by a poorly managed and funded healthcare system, cost of treatment, and a shortage of healthcare professionals. With the connections made during his training and the vision and guidance of his mentors, Dr. Gandhi looks forward to creating a network of young HPB surgeons to facilitate this important endeavour. He has helped set up and is currently involved in various multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings, including a monthly Sub-Saharan HCC meeting and an international collaborative HCC meeting with Fortis Hospitals in India. He is also actively involved with the HPB service and MDT meetings at the Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya.

Dr. Gandhi is also passionate about teaching and training young surgeons in Kenya, especially in the fields of laparoscopy and surgical endoscopy delivery in rural areas. He is a member of the Operating Theatre Practitioners Association of Kenya (OTPAK), where training workshops are organised for surgical trainees in the Kenyan College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA), in order to train and empower them to perform basic laparoscopic surgical procedures in rural centres. His role as a faculty member at the AKUH, N also includes supervision and training of surgical residents, thereby promoting academia alongside clinical service delivery. He plans to set up a surgical registry database in the hospital, which will be used to generate data, audit practice, and produce high-quality research that can be published in reputable peer-reviewed journals.

With his solid background, training, passion and networking, Dr. Gandhi believes he is a key player in taking HPB surgery forward on the continent of Africa.