Dr. Rauf Shahbazov Named Chief of Transplant Surgery at Albany Medical Center

Rauf Shahbazov, MD, PhD, has been named the inaugural chief of the Division of Transplant Surgery at Albany Medical Center, and the Neil Lempert Endowed Chair in the Department of Surgery. He begins his appointment on August 2.

Dr. Shahbazov comes to Albany Medical Center from Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, N.Y., where he served as the director of the Living Donor Kidney Transplant Program, surgical director of Pancreas Transplant Program, and the director of the Robotic Surgery Program.

“We are excited to have Dr. Shahbazov join our team and look forward to continuing our program’s long history of successful outcomes and multidisciplinary support for patients before, during, and after transplant,” said KMarie King, MD, Henry and Sally Schaffer Chair of the Department of Surgery and professor and chief of Surgery at Albany Medical Center.

Among his goals, Dr. Shahbazov plans to expand upon the program’s strengths in access to transplantation and comprehensive care and to further develop its education and research missions.

“Albany Medical Center’s transplant program has successfully served patients for several decades with excellent outcomes. I look forward to leading the team in its continued work toward long, healthy, and productive lives for people with end stage organ failure through access to safe and high-quality transplantation and continued care,” Dr. Shahbazov said.

Dr. Shahbazov completed a fellowship in transplant surgery at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Va., a transplant research fellowship at Baylor Transplant Institute in Dallas, and a transplant surgery fellowship at Baskent University in Ankara, Turkey. He completed general surgery residencies at King Faisal Hospital in Al-Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Clinical Hospital #5 in Baku, Azerbaijan. He received his medical degree from Azerbaijan Medical University, also in Baku.

Dr. Shahbazov is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and European Board of Surgery as well as a member of numerous professional societies, including the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American Medical Association. He has authored or co-authored dozens of publications in professional journals and authored a chapter on Living Donor Liver Transplantation in the book Transplantation Surgery. He is fluent in English, Azerbaijani, Russian, and Turkish, and is proficient in Arabic.

For more information about Albany Medical Center’s Kidney Transplant Program, call 518-262-5614.