San Diego-based Scripps Health named Mark Sturdevant, MD, program director and division head of the Scripps Center for Organ and Cell Transplantation, according to a Sept. 20 news release shared with Becker’s.
Dr. Sturdevant succeeds Christopher Marsh, MD, who is retiring from clinical duties after 24 years as chief of transplant surgery and surgical program director of the center. Dr. Marsh will remain chair of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons Foundation board of directors.
Dr. Sturdevant will lead Scripps’ living and deceased donor kidney, liver and pancreas transplant programs. He will oversee quality assessment and performance improvement, regulatory compliance, and staffing and training, while working to expand access to transplantation.
He specializes in liver transplantation, with a focus on living donor and split liver procedures, in which surgeons divide one donor liver to treat two recipients. He also performs kidney and pancreas transplants.
Dr. Sturdevant previously worked as a transplant surgeon and held faculty positions at UPMC in Pittsburgh and at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. At University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, he helped perform the world’s first series of dual liver-heart transplants involving “domino” liver transplantation, whereby a patient receives a new liver and then donates their own removed liver to another recipient as a usable graft.
“He brings immense surgical expertise that will benefit our patients and program in the years ahead,” said Ghazala Sharieff, MD, corporate executive senior vice president and chief medical and operations officer of acute care at Scripps Health.
The Scripps center launched San Diego’s first liver transplant program in 1990. Scripps Health treats more than 600,000 patients each year across five acute care hospital campuses and more than 70 outpatient and specialty locations.
