The transplant, which occurred on June 30, was performed by the transplant program’s founder, Ronald Busuttil, MD, executive chairman of the department of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and chief of the division of liver and pancreas transplantation.
Steve McDowell, the recipient of the kidney, underwent the surgery on his birthday after struggling with the end stages of advanced liver disease.
When UCLA launched its liver transplant program in 1984, it was the only program west of the Mississippi River.
“Consider that in the 32 years since its inception, the UCLA Liver Transplant Program has performed roughly one liver transplant every other day,” said Johnese Spisso, RN, MPA, president of UCLA Health and CEO of UCLA Hospital System.
UCLA has performed more than 90 liver plants in 2016 alone. Currently, 421 patients are on the hospital’s waiting list for a new liver.
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