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Aneesh Kumar is a consultant otolaryngologist and head, neck, and thyroid surgeon who performs procedures at St John of God Geelong Hospital.

He has completed three ear, nose and throat surgery training programmes:

1. Residency programme from Pune University, India. He graduated with first rank in Master of Surgery.
2. Advanced registrar training programme in Liverpool, United Kingdom.
3. Advanced Fellowship in Head and Neck Onco-surgery, Microvascular and Facial Plastic Reconstructive Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.

Aneesh gained tremendous experience from working across India, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This has given him a deep understanding of the challenges faced by patients and health care workers internationally.

Working in India with immense workload and under severe financial, technological and human resource constraints was a great learning experience. Aneesh became familiar with the complexity of managing advanced head and neck cancer and severe complications from ear, nose and throat infections early in his career. Successfully treating and helping patients from very low socio-economic backgrounds was hugely satisfying for him.

Aneesh’s training in the United Kingdom focused on the practice of evidence based medicine on all aspects of ear, nose and throat diseases. This allowed him to apply his clinical knowledge and surgical skills to each individual patient. Teaching also focused on confidentiality, professionalism, ethics, patient rights and clinical governance. Training also helped to improve management and leadership skills.

Working in Canada helped Aneesh understand the challenges of a large country. Patients had to travel several hours to see a specialist. He learned several methods of managing this complex problem. After learning resection of complex head and neck cancers in Liverpool, this fellowship gave him confidence in reconstruction of large defects. In Canada, Aneesh learned micro vascular and facial plastic reconstruction which spurred his interest in cosmetic reanimation for facial palsy.

After completing his training, Aneesh worked as an ENT consultant at Lincoln County Hospital, UK. Here he had an amazing experience working with great colleagues, patients and their families in a small town.

Aneesh then worked in New Zealand for 11 years. He started and developed the head and neck cancer surgery department at Palmerston North Hospital. Having started Thyroid MDT at Palmerston North in 2014, Aneesh has been the Chairman of the MDT since then. He has held several leadership roles including Clinical Director of the ENT Department and Chairman of the Head and Neck MDT at Palmerston North Hospital. He has a special interest in surgery of skin cancer of the head and neck, and facial plastic surgery. Aneesh has good experience in facial reanimation techniques including gold weight to the upper eye lid, lower eyelid tightening, static slings and dynamic methods to improve smile using nerve graft and transfer.

Aneesh possesses the following qualifications:

• MBBS
• MS
• DNB
• FRCS (Glasgow)
• FRCS (Ireland)
• FRCS(ORL-HNS)
• FRACS
• Masters in Health Service Management