Quick Facts
Biography
Vidya Jyothi Mohamed Hussain Rezvi Sheriff, FRCP (Lon), FRCP (Edin), FRACP, FCCP, FSLCGP, FNASSL is a Sri Lankan academic and physician. He is the Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine; Senior Professor of Medicine; Head of the Department of Clinical Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. He is also a Consultant Physician and Nephrologist National Hospital Sri Lanka.
Education
Sheriff began his formal education at Zahira College Colombo and later received a Scholarship and moved to Royal College Colombo. He subsequently entered the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo where he obtained both a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery and later Doctor of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Ceylon College of Physicians.
Career
After qualification he was appointed Lecturer in Medicine in the Department of Medicine under Professor Kumaradasa Rajasuriya. After training in the UK obtaining MRCP he returned as Senior Lecturer later being promoted to Professor.
He and his collaborator AH Sheriffdeen set up the first transplant programme in the country in October 1985. He and Surendra Ramachandran pioneered the speciality of Nephrology in Sri Lanka. Nearly 1,000 transplants have been done under his supervision.
He is a member of the senior advisory board to SACTRC (South Asian Clinical Toxicology Research Collaboration) with Nimal Senanayake, Ravindra fernando and Janaka de Silva. He founded the OxCol ( University of Oxford Colombo link) for studies on snake bite and yellow oleander poisoning. He was President of the Sri Lanka Medical Association, Ceylon College of Physicians, Sri Lanka Association for Nephrology and Transplantation, SAARC Society of Nephrology, Urology and Transplant Surgery and the Founder President of the Hypertension Society in Sri Lanka in addition to being a founder of the Health Informatics Society in Sri Lankaand a Councillor of the International Society of Nephrology. He is an External Examiner for MRCP in UK & Chennai. He is the Ceylon College of Physician Coordinator for MRCP Examinations in Sri Lanka.
He has published widely in Nephrology, Transplantation, Snake Bite and Oleander Poisoning.
He is also the founder Chairman of Western Infirmary Hospital in Colombo, a center known for renal disease care, dialysis and transplantation.
He retired from University of Colombo on September 30, 2014, after 41 years of service.
Honours and awards
He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Honorary Fellow of the College of General Practitioners of Sri Lanka and a Fellow of the National Academy of Science of Sri Lanka.
The Titular honour Vidya Jyothi was conferred upon him by the Government of Sri Lanka in recognition of his contribution to Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation in Sri Lanka. He also received a Lion International Merit Award.