Melbourne · Abdominal wall & metabolic surgery
Thirty years of hernia and bariatric surgery. Every case planned, operated and followed by the same surgeon — open, laparoscopic or robotic, chosen to fit the anatomy in front of him.
Prof. Ramana Balasubramaniam — Ram to most — has spent three decades narrowing his focus rather than widening it: the abdominal wall, the diaphragm, and the surgery of weight. He trained in India, the United Kingdom and Australia, holds fellowships of the Royal Australasian, American and English colleges, and founded a community of 6,000 surgeons devoted to abdominal wall reconstruction.
He has delivered the Rod Jacob Address to the Australia & New Zealand Hernia Society, lectured at Harvard, and taught at the European, American and Japanese hernia societies. In Melbourne he runs a deliberately small practice so that the surgeon who plans your operation is the one who performs it and the one who follows you afterwards.
Three surgeons may offer three different operations for the same hernia. Ram's view is that the right one is decided by the defect, the patient and the evidence — not by the equipment a practice happens to own.
Assessment, the operation itself, and follow-up are done by Ram personally. No rotating registrars on the day, no surprises about who is holding the instruments.
Each route has a place. The choice follows defect size, prior surgery, mesh history and body habitus — explained to you before anything is booked.
Most repairs are straightforward. The craft is in the difficult ones — recurrent, infected, loss-of-domain — where planning the first operation around avoiding the second matters most.
A hernia is a gap in the muscle wall. Some are a nuisance; some are dangerous; a few are an engineering problem. Each guide below is written for patients — what it is, when it needs surgery, and what the repair involves.
The common groin hernia. Open mesh, laparoscopic TEP/TAPP, and when each is the better choice.
Read the guide →Hernias through the front of the abdomen, often at the site of a previous scar.
Read the guide →Small midline defects at or above the navel — when to watch, when to repair.
Read the guide →Component separation and TAR for large, recurrent or contaminated defects.
Read the guide →Hernias of the stomach through the diaphragm, with or without reflux.
Read the guide →Less common, more likely to obstruct — and the reason a groin lump deserves assessment.
Read the guide →Bariatric surgery is not a shortcut and it is not for everyone. For the right patient it is the most durable treatment medicine has for obesity and its diseases — diabetes, sleep apnoea, fatty liver, reflux. The work is in deciding whether it is the right tool, and which operation.
Keyhole groin repair, mesh placed behind the muscle wall.
The durable open mesh repair, often under local or regional anaesthetic.
Retromuscular mesh for midline hernias — the workhorse of the abdomen.
Releasing the muscle layers to close large or recurrent defects without tension.
Most of the stomach is removed, leaving a narrow tube. Simple, reliable, the common first operation.
A small pouch is joined to the small bowel. Strongest effect on reflux and type 2 diabetes.
A single-join bypass — fewer connections, considered for selected patients.
The thing GPs say they want from a surgeon is simple: a letter back, soon. Ram's practice is built around it.
Where Ram sees patients
Consultations are held close to where patients live; surgery is concentrated at John Fawkner Private Hospital so the theatre team knows the work.
Appointments & directions →