Mr Akash Mehta is a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon at St Mark’s Hospital. He qualified in Medicine at Leiden University in Leiden, the Netherlands and subsequently trained in surgery at VU Medical Centre in Amsterdam, with an elective rotation in Surgical Oncology at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He successfully completed senior clinical fellowships in advanced colorectal surgery at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam (peritoneal malignancy, advanced and recurrent colorectal cancer), the Peritoneal Malignancy Institute Basingstoke (peritoneal malignancy) and finally worked as MiMICC (Minimally and Maximally Invasive Colorectal Cancer) Fellow and Resident Surgical Officer at St Mark’s Hospital. As MiMICC Fellow he was a key member of the team successfully establishing the St Mark’s peritoneal malignancy programme (offering cytoreductive surgery + HIPEC to patients with peritoneal metastases of colorectal cancer).
Akash has completed post-graduate research in the Netherlands and is due to be awarded his PhD in tumour immunological aspects of human cancers.
Akash was appointed as Consultant Colorectal Surgeon in 2019. His primary clinical interests, apart from advanced colorectal cancer, are Intestinal Failure & Rehabilitation Surgery, surgery for enteric fistulae and complex abdominal wall pathology as well as the management of serious complications of previous abdominal surgery.
Akash is the author of a series of 11 pocketbooks covering the Dutch medical school curriculum; and is editor and one of the main authors of A Practical Guide to Peritoneal Malignancy: The PMI Manual.
Akash’ main research and management interests include distal limb feeding (enteroclysis and fistuloclysis) as pre-operative optimisation of defunctioned bowel, outcome measurements in complex abdominal wall reconstruction and quality improvement of healthcare processes (Akash is a graduate of the LNWUH NHS Trust Improvement Fellowship Training Programme). He is a member of the European Society of Coloproctology (ESCP) Guidelines Committee and co-supervisor of the St Mark’s Intestinal Failure & Rehabilitation Surgery Fellowship, the UK’s only officially accredited fellowship in this field (currently under development).