'I had a double transplant at 21 — now I'm training to be a transplant surgeon'

A medical student whose life was saved by a 15-hour double transplant now plans to become a surgeon to help others in a similar position. Andy Prigg, 23, was born with the rare genetic condition autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease. He knew from a young age he would need a new kidney, and at 15, it became clear he also needed a liver transplant.

The experience — and years of care from “all these great people, growing up” — have left him in no doubt about what he wants to do in the future. He said: “Pre-transplant, I always wanted to do emergency medicine, in the helicopters and stuff like that. I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie. Now, post-transplant, I feel like there is nothing cooler in medicine than transplant. It's the one speciality in which you can take something back from death.

“There is no other speciality where you can give someone a kidney or a liver or something like that, and completely change their life in around 12 hours.”

Andy, who is in his fourth year at the University of Sheffield, joined the transplant waiting list in January 2024 after suffering a skiing injury.

He said: “I knew a transplant was coming up, but I was very much trying to make the most of still being able to travel, still being able to get out.

“I wasn't being particularly reckless but just had a huge fall, and I managed to write off the kidney that was damaged, but still doing a bit of the work.”

He suffered sleepless nights while waiting for a donor and struggled with feeling like he was “effectively waiting for someone else to pass”.

The call finally came at 6.30am on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. After tests to confirm the match, the double transplant went ahead.

The recovery was “pretty horrendous”, Andy said. He added: “I'd been playing hockey the night before, so you go from that to being on an intensive care unit for a week. That was quite scary.”

The doctor-to-be, from Chester, Cheshire, said he thinks about the donor who gave him a second chance at life every day.

He has since spent two months working with a transplant team in Oxford, and plans to travel to Sydney, Australia, next year to spend his elective placement with transplant specialists.

Andy has also regained his fitness and won two gold medals in cycling at the British Transplant Games in Sheffield on Friday. He smashed a 5km time trial in eight minutes and 32 seconds, and finished a 10km road race in 18 minutes flat.

Andy added: “Kidney disease is the silent killer, so you're not particularly symptomatic. I was always really fatigued, a bit groggy, but I just thought it was normal. Only now, post-transplant, can I see that.”

NHS Blood and Transplant launched an appeal last week for one million more people to register as organ donors by 2027.

Although England has an opt-out system, families are still consulted and are more likely to refuse donation if they did not know their loved one’s wishes.

Family consent or authorisation for donations across the UK has dropped by almost a fifth from 69% in 2020/21 to 57% in 2025/26.

Almost 29 million people in the UK have recorded their decision by joining the NHS Organ Donor Register. Andy said he would not “push anyone either way”, but urged people to speak to their loved ones.

He added: “I think it's just a discussion worth having. It’s about having the conversation, the understanding with your family.”