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About
About A/Prof Viraj Kariyawasam
Consultant gastroenterologist and hepatologist with a practice focused on inflammatory bowel disease and more than twenty years of clinical experience in Australian gastroenterology.
Background
Training and career
Associate Professor Viraj Kariyawasam is a consultant gastroenterologist and hepatologist with a practice focused on inflammatory bowel disease, advanced therapeutic endoscopy and luminal gastroenterology. He completed his medical degree with honours at the University of Colombo and trained in gastroenterology at Gosford, Westmead and Concord Hospitals and was admitted to the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2011. He then completed an advanced therapeutic endoscopy fellowship at Concord Hospital and a clinical research fellowship in inflammatory bowel disease at Concord and at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London. His PhD, through the University of Sydney, examined thiopurine therapy in inflammatory bowel disease.
From 2012 to 2025 he was a consultant gastroenterologist at Blacktown Hospital, his first consultant post after training. He helped expand the Gastroenterology Department and its services there, planning the new ward, department space and endoscopy unit from the ground up and building the outpatient services in general gastroenterology. He also founded the hospital's inflammatory bowel disease service and led it as Head of IBD Services. By the time he left it was caring for more than 1,000 patients and running clinical trials.
He now holds an appointment with the IBD Service at Concord Repatriation General Hospital and is a visiting medical officer at Norwest Private Hospital and Macquarie University Hospital. In private practice he consults at Complete Health Australia, the multidisciplinary specialist group he co-founded in Western Sydney, and at Pennant Hills Gastroenterology and Macquarie GI.
His practice covers general gastroenterology and liver disease. The largest part of it is inflammatory bowel disease. After that comes the prevention and early detection of gastrointestinal cancer, including the endoscopic removal of large polyps from the bowel and surveillance of Barrett's oesophagus. Irritable bowel syndrome and disorders of gut-brain interaction make up a further part of the work, managed with a multidisciplinary approach that can draw on dietetics, psychology and gut-directed therapies alongside medical treatment.
He also spends a good deal of time on how gastroenterology services are organised. That includes what a service needs to run safely at scale, how quickly a patient with a positive screening test reaches a colonoscopy and whether effective treatments are actually available to Australian patients.
Away from work
He is a proud father of two young boys and is married to an anaesthetist with a working week as full as his own. Time away from the hospital goes to family and to travel, and to making memories while watching his sons grow into young men.
Doctify Outstanding Patient Experience Award, 2026. Awarded on verified feedback collected independently by Doctify, where the reviews can be read in full.
Appointments and roles
- Public hospitalIBD Service, Concord Repatriation General Hospital (VHMO). He is listed with the Department of Gastroenterology there.
- Private hospitalVisiting medical officer, Norwest Private Hospital and Macquarie University Hospital · also operating at Pennant Hills Day Surgery
- UniversityClinical Associate Professor, Macquarie University Medical School · Conjoint Associate Professor, Western Sydney University
- Private practiceCo-founder, Complete Health Australia, more than 35 specialists across Western Sydney · Pennant Hills Gastroenterology · Macquarie GI
- EducationFounding Director, IBD Sydney · contributor to the National IBD School, in its eleventh year
- GuidelinesClinical Co-Chair, Gastroenterology Network, Agency for Clinical Innovation · working group member, NSW Colonoscopy Categorisation Clinical Practice Guide (2020) · working party member, Clinical Practice Guidelines for Surveillance Colonoscopy, Cancer Council Australia, approved by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
- ProfessionCouncillor, AMA (NSW) · AMA (NSW) Hospital Practice Committee
- CollegesFellow, Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP, 2011) · Member, Royal College of Physicians, United Kingdom (MRCP)
- SocietiesGastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA), since 2012 · European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) · American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) · American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) · Conjoint Committee for the Recognition of Training in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
- PreviouslyConsultant gastroenterologist and Head of IBD Services, Blacktown Hospital, 2012 to 2025
- QualificationsMBBS (Hons), University of Colombo · FRACP (2011) · MRCP (UK) · PhD, University of Sydney
- RegistrationRegistered medical practitioner, specialist registration in gastroenterology and hepatology. AHPRA MED0001199000. Registration can be checked on the AHPRA public register.
- ColonoscopyRecertified in adult colonoscopy under the Recertification in Colonoscopy Program, valid to 12 May 2029. Listed on the GESA register of recertified colonoscopists.
- ElsewhereLinkedIn · publications · ORCID
- LanguagesEnglish and Sinhala
- Outside workMost of his time goes to his family
Complete Health Australia and IBD Sydney
A/Prof Kariyawasam is a founding director of Complete Health Australia, the multidisciplinary specialist group he helped establish in Western Sydney in 2016. It runs clinics at Norwest, Rouse Hill and Oran Park and puts physicians, surgeons and allied health under one roof across sixteen specialties. The group sets out to make care patient-focused, multidisciplinary, accessible and integrated, and works to the principle that every patient should be treated with the respect, empathy and attention the group would give its own family.
He is also a founding director of IBD Sydney, a not-for-profit organisation working to improve the lives of the roughly 180,000 Australians living with inflammatory bowel disease, as counted by Crohn's & Colitis Australia. Its stated purpose is the relief of people with the condition, through educating the clinicians who diagnose and treat them and through advancing research into treatment. That runs across four areas: education and awareness, wider access through rural partnerships and telemedicine, research and training for health professionals.
In practice it means the IBD School, held every year since 2016 for gastroenterology trainees and junior specialists, the IBD Sydney meetings that run through the year, and SWIM, the multidisciplinary meetings on complex cases across New South Wales.
Make an appointment
Appointments are booked through the rooms directly. Have your GP referral ready when you call or ask your GP to send it ahead. Urgent inflammatory bowel disease, rectal bleeding and positive bowel screening referrals are prioritised.
Norwest & Rouse Hill (02) 8530 1800 Pennant Hills (02) 9875 2311 Macquarie Park (02) 9812 3880