Dr Ashish Diwan MBBS, MS, DipNB (Ortho), PhD (UNSW) Orthopaedic Surgeon, Spine Service

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Dr Ashish Diwan is the Chief of Spine Service and Director of Education at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, St. George Hospital specialising in surgery for degenerative disorders of the spine and in spinal deformities (scoliosis & kyphosis).

His expertise includes minimally invasive intradiscal treatments, microscopic spinal decompression, spinal stabilisation using computer-aided-guidance, anterior and posterior surgery for adult spinal deformity and total disc replacement. For further information please click here...

Dr Ashish Diwan is extensively involved in research such as the regulation of fracture repair and disc regeneration and is an editor of Orthopaedic Clinics of North America.

Dr Ashish Diwan specializes in surgery of the spine in particular degenerative disorders and spinal deformities. At St George Hospital he is Chief of Spine Service and Director of Education for Orthopaedic Surgery. He specializes in the area of Non Fusion technology in spinal surgery, specifically total disc replacement, and in minimally invasive strategies to treat degenerative conditions and osteoporotic crush fractures. He continues his work with computer navigation for spinal surgery. Apart from standard microdiscectomies and decompression, he has special skills in large spinal column reconstructions and realignment. He operates on the cervical, thoracic and lumbar regions.

He started his medical graduation at the Armed Forces Medical College and completed it from the University of Jabalpur, India in 1984. Here, he started his Orthopaedic Training in 1985 and eventually completed it in 1990 from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He was an Assistant Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery at Sancheti Institute, Pune University. In 1993 he was awarded Dilpomate of the National Board of Examinations(Orthopaedic Surgery) and incorporated as member of The National Academy of Medical Sciences.

Dr Ashish Diwan completed his Orthopaedic Surgery Fellowship at St George Hospital, University of New South Wales, Sydney. He then went on to obtain a PhD at University of New South Wales.

He received training in advanced spinal surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery at Cornell University in New York City, the oldest and largest orthopaedic hospital in the USA where he was awarded the prestigious Philip D. Wilson Award.

He is also a recipient of the National Orthopaedic Surgery Fellows Foundation Award in the US for outstanding achievements in the field of orthopaedic surgery and was subsequently awarded the Merrill Lynch Global Innovation Award in 2000. He delivered the Hastings Memorial Lecture at St George. He is a member of the North American Spine Society and the International Society of the Study of the Lumbar Spine for whom he was the nominated MacNab and Larocca Fellowship host for 2004.

Dr Diwan is very active in research. His area of interest includes the molecular basis of fracture healing and disc degeneration. He has also developed novel technology for disc nucleus replacement and for disc regeneration. His group collaborates extensively to study the role of autologous stem cells in disc regeneration.