Mr Dhananjay Kulkarni

I am a Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgeon at the Spire Murrayfield Hospital and the Edinburgh Breast Unit, Western General Hospital, one of the largest breast units in the country treating over 1,000 breast cancer cases every year. I have over 20 years of experience of working in a breast unit. My special interests are oncoplastic breast reconstruction for patients with breast cancer, management of benign breast diseases, and breast duct micro-endoscopy.

I have gained experience in management of complex breast cancer cases and oncoplastic reconstruction following breast surgery (procedures like therapeutic mammoplasty, lipofilling/ fat grafting, implant reconstruction and perforator flaps reconstruction, LD muscle flap). I am a part of weekly multidisciplinary meeting at Spire Murrayfield Hospital where the management plan for all newly diagnosed breast cancer patients are discussed with a group of specialists.

I am a graduate of Bombay University, India (Sir Grant Medical College and JJ Group of Hospitals) and undertook my postgraduate general surgical training at Bombay University. I submitted my dissertation on ‘treatment of male breast cancer’ as a part of my master’s in general surgery (MS), Bombay University.

I then completed four years of surgical oncology training at Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital, Bombay, India. Tata Memorial Hospital is the largest tertiary referral cancer hospital in Southeast Asia. The aim of this surgical training programme is to train surgeons in comprehensive management of cancer care. The training programme included rotations in different specialty services such as: head and neck cancer, breast and thoracic cancer, gastrointestinal cancer (upper and lower GI, hepatobiliary), gynaecology-urology cancer, bone and soft tissue cancer, and plastics reconstruction service.

It was during this period where my passion and enthusiasm for cancer surgery first surfaced, and I developed an interest in the management of breast cancer.

I then had an opportunity to work at the breast unit, Department of Academic Oncology, Guy’s and St Thomas' Hospital London for two and a half years as a research registrar where I completed my clinical research project on breast duct micro-endoscopy. I received a distinction for my dissertation entitled: ‘Development of the technique of breast duct micro-endoscopy’, submitted as part of the MSc in surgical technology (Imperial College and St Mary’s Hospital Paddington, University of London) in 2007.

I worked in London for several years before moving to Edinburgh and joined the Edinburgh breast unit, Western General Hospital. I am involved in the diagnosis, care, and medical/surgical management of benign breast diseases such as breast pain, benign breast lumps (fibroadenoma, cysts etc), treatment of breast infection and nipple discharge as well as counselling and prophylactic surgery with reconstruction for patients with a high-risk family history of breast cancer.

I regularly conduct clinics for screen detected breast abnormalities/cancer patients at the Ardmillan NHS Breast Cancer Screening Centre, Edinburgh.

I have a special interest in teaching and training of the surgical trainees, and I am actively involved in the teaching programme at the Edinburgh Medical School. I also worked on a collaboration between Edinburgh and Hong Kong University teaching programme for breast surgical trainees in Hong Kong University for five years.

I am also a tutor for the ESSQ and ChM qualifications for the University of Edinburgh/Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. I was awarded the 'innovative teaching project' grant in 2012 by Edinburgh University to set up and run a website dedicated to the management of breast diseases for medical students/surgical trainees.