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Embracing diversity feature
The two of us Meet twin surgeons Associate Professor Sanjay Warrier and Dr Satish Warrier
Associate Professor Sanjay Warrier and Dr Satish Warrier are twins – identical twins – with many shared interests including surgery, family, sports and music. Associate Professor Sanjay is a breast oncology and oncoplastic surgeon. He is a current Council member for Breast Surgeons of Australia and New Zealand (BreastSurgANZ) and the immediate past president (May 2019-May 2020). Dr Satish Warrier is a colorectal and general surgeon at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Alfred Health, and Epworth Healthcare. Born in Albury and growing up in Nambucca Heads, New South Wales, Sanjay and Satish enjoyed an idyllic country life. As twins, who were mistaken for each other in primary school, they were content with each other’s company, spending hours together studying, playing sports and spending time with their family. “We are very close,” Sanjay said. “It’s an interesting phenomenon to be growing up with another person who is your best
Associate Professor Sanjay Warrier and Dr Satish Warrier
friend and spending every day together until you’re outside of university. It’s been a norm for us – someone being there all the time.” Growing up in a family where their mother was a local general practitioner and their father a surgeon, gravitating towards a medical career from a young age was a given. “Dad said to us, ‘Service is a part of our goal. Do your best, do your duty, and help others,’ and it became ingrained in us and a driving force for us to do medicine,” Satish said. But at 17, Sanjay and Satish travelled to India for six months and lived in an ashram. They were the youngest at the ashram where they lived a simple life: they woke up early, prayed, sang bhajans (devotional songs), and learnt to play the tabla (Indian drums).
Associate Professor Sanjay Warrier
On their return they enrolled in the University of New South Wales medical school, completed an elective in Bangalore (India) – where they did a modelling stint – and travelled to Dublin
for a year. Sanjay remembers their Dublin days with fondness. Along with excelling in their studies, both brothers were strong in the sporting field, playing cricket and tennis at inter-varsity levels. Their paths split after they completed medical school. Satish completed his internship in Hobart to be with his future wife and later relocated to Melbourne. Initially he was interested in Plastic Surgery and as a pathway studied General Surgery. Around that time laparoscopy or keyhole bowel surgery was emerging, and he found the procedure technically very interesting. “Since this surgery was minimally invasive, I was attracted to it and the more I found out about the surgery the more I veered towards that pathway,” Satish said. In 2009, Satish got his Fellowship and in 2010 he spent a year at Epworth Cleveland as part of the Epworth’s Cleveland fellowship program. That experience was an eye-opener, with world experts teaching him not only surgical skills but also how to balance
