Patna: Dr Manish Mandal, Professor and Head of Gastrointestinal Surgery and Medical Superintendent at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), Patna, was felicitated by the Bihar governor, Arif Mohammed Khan, on Sunday for his contributions to organ donation and transplantation in the state. As Chairman of the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) Bihar, Dr Mandal has emerged as a key driver of system-building—from donor identification and counselling to retrieval logistics, inter-hospital coordination, and transplant capability—positioning Bihar for a step change in both living and deceased organ transplantation.
Under Dr Mandal’s leadership at SOTTO Bihar, the state has focused on strengthening the entire continuum required for a functional transplant ecosystem. Priority areas have included establishing brain-death declaration protocols across major hospitals, training ICU teams for donor maintenance, and building professional counselling capacity to support families during consent. Parallel efforts have standardized organ retrieval workflows, strengthened linkages with National/Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organizations, and improved allocation transparency through structured waitlisting and matching mechanisms.
At IGIMS, where Dr Mandal heads GI Surgery, the transplant program has expanded through clinical pathway standardization, perioperative critical care protocols, and infection control upgrades—core prerequisites for high-quality outcomes in liver, kidney, and pancreas transplantation. Multidisciplinary transplant boards now routinely integrate hepatobiliary, nephrology, anesthesiology, radiology, pathology, immunology, and transplant nursing to accelerate patient evaluation and minimize time-to-transplant for eligible candidates.
Receiving the honour, Dr Mandal dedicated the recognition to donors and their families, the transplant teams at IGIMS and partner hospitals, and the SOTTO coordination network. He underscored the need for sustained investment in ICU infrastructure, transplant nursing, and rapid transport corridors, while calling for greater community participation to bridge the gap between organ need and availability. He also reiterated SOTTO Bihar’s commitment to evidence-based expansion into multi-organ transplantation and tissue banking, with a strong ethical framework and public transparency.
