Kumud Dhital

Kumud Dhital (Nepali: कुमुद िधताल), FRCS, PhD is a cardiothoracic specialist and transplant surgeon at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, Australia. In fall 2014, Dhital was part of the surgical team who completed the world’s first “dead heart” transplant. A “dead heart” is a heart donated after circulatory death (DCD), where the heart has stopped beating. As of 24 October 2014, 3 patients had received DCD heart transplants. It helps to buy certain time(3 to 6 hrs) for the dead heart to transplant in a receiver.

Dhital is also an associate professor and senior lecturer in surgery at the University of New South Wales. As a faculty member at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Dhital works closely with Professor Peter MacDonald, the medical director of the St Vincent’s Heart Transplant Unit. St Vincent’s Hospital and the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute collaborated to develop their successful DCD transplant technique.