Heart failure diagnosis at 29 surreal, doctor says

Dr Sanjana Kochhar wants to raise awareness of heart conditions

A doctor who found out she had heart failure while studying said experiencing such a serious condition first-hand after learning about it was "surreal"

Dr Sanjana Kochhar, known as Sanj, was a 29-year-old student in her third year at university when she started to experience heart palpitations and breathlessness.

She was eventually placed on the urgent heart transplant list in 2022, before receiving a donor organ four weeks later.

“As a doctor, I thought I understood heart failure but experiencing it first-hand was surreal [and] something no amount of training could prepare me for," she said.

Sanj, from Liverpool, said her health started deteriorating and she began struggling to walk up a flight of stairs.

She said she had tests, which ruled out various heart conditions, but became "very, very poorly".

"I wasn’t walking or eating", she said.

She was rushed to hospital in October 2022 in a critical condition.

Sanj is now urging the public to donate to the British Heart Foundation

While in hospital, she had multiple organ failure and was placed on the urgent heart transplant list on 31 October 2022.

“As a doctor, I thought I understood heart failure but experiencing it first-hand was surreal [and] something no amount of training could prepare me for," she said.

“My heart wasn’t working properly, my lungs were full of fluid and my kidney and liver function were quickly deteriorating."

She said that remarkably, a donor was found quite quickly and she received her transplant just four weeks later.

She said while she was grateful to receive the organ, it came with a mix of emotions.

"For me, one of the hardest things to get through was accepting the fact that someone was going to die in order for me to get a heart," she said.

“I think as a doctor, that's a really difficult thing to process because my job is to save people.

"In a horrible way, by wanting a new heart, I was waiting for someone to die.”

Sanj was discharged from hospital in December 2022 and got engaged a year later

Sanj, now 31, was discharged from hospital on Christmas Eve 2022 and began adjusting to life with a new heart.

She said reaching milestones like going to the gym and taking up hiking, yoga and badminton would not have been possible without the transplant.

She said she got engaged on the anniversary of her transplant in November 2023 and now wanted to raise awareness of heart conditions.

"I think I’m in a really unique position being a doctor and a transplant recipient and I think I should use that to help other people," she said.

Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive at the British Heart Foundation, said despite six decades of progress for her organisation, it was "heartbreaking" to know that "millions of people like Sanj... are hoping and waiting for treatments and cures that we just don’t have yet".