Professor Adibul Hassan Rizvi was born in Karachi in 1939. He received his education there, ultimately gaining MD in 1961, from the University of Karachi. He then moved to the UK and got a fellowship in surgery, and worked in various hospitals in the UK until 1971. Returning to Pakistan, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Urology in Civil Hospital in Karachi.
He is now working as director of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplantation (SIUT), as well as Professor at Dow Medical College in Karachi (since 1992).
SlUTisthepioneerofcadaverorgantransplantation in Pakistan. In 1995, Professor Rizvi and his team successfully carried out the first cadaver renal transplant in the country. The Kidney used was donated to SIUT by the Euro Transplant Foundation, the largest center for coordinating transplant activities in Europe. This remarkable achievement paved the way for Pakistan's cadaver organ donation and transplantation program.
SIUT has initially carried out 23 such transplants, all the kidneys being donated by the Euro Transplant Foundation. SIUT is one of the largest institutions of the public health sector in Pakistan. Its mission is to provide free-of-charge modern and comprehensive services to patients with renal problems.
In the year 2000 alone it has provided free-of-charge treatment for 290,000 patients, nearly all of whom could not otherwise obtain treatment elsewhere due to soaring costs in private medical centers. Meanwhile, there is no other medical center in Pakistan that offers comprehensive services free-of-charge comparable to SIUT in which Professor Rizvi is the driving force.
To date, SIUT has performed more than 1,200 renal transplants with a remarkable success rate comparable to the developed world. Had it not been for Professor's Rizvi's humanitarian service, thousands of patients would have suffered and died in silence, with no help whatsoever forthcoming.
Professor Rizvi's contributions to medicine have not gone unrecognized. He has been given several awards in recognition of his service. He is recipient of the Sitara-E-lmtiaz awarded by the President of Pakistan in 1992, as well as St. Paul's Medal by the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) in 1994. He was also awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1988, and received the Hilal-e-lmtiaz Award from the President of Pakistan in 2000.
He has recently been awarded the Hunterian Professorship for the year 2002-2003 from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, one of the most coveted awards in the field of surgery in Europe, and especially in England. He is also a winner of several other awards.