Surgeon, Physician. He was considered "the father of modern transplantation". He attended Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri where he earned a B.S. degree in biology. He then attended Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago and earned his Masters, Ph.D., and M.D.. After graduating, he trained in surgery at both Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland and Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida. He was a surgeon at the University of Colorado from 1962 to 1981. He then went on to the University of Pittsburgh where the hospital became the busiest transplant center in the world. In the 1960s he improved kidney transplantation by giving patients the steroid prednisone along with the anti-rejection drug Imuran. He repeated the same steroid strategy to improve the success of liver transplantation. In 1963 he performed the first liver transplant in Denver, but it was not successful. Four years later, in 1967, he performed the first successful liver transplant on a patient who survived for a year. Since that first successful liver transplant, there has been thousands of lives that have been saved by similar operations. He also pioneered many other medical achievements during his career and earned many awards and honors for his work. He retired in 1991 from clinical and surgical service in 1991, but remained at the University of Pittsburgh as professor of surgery until his passing.
Surgeon, Physician. He was considered "the father of modern transplantation". He attended Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri where he earned a B.S. degree in biology. He then attended Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago and earned his Masters, Ph.D., and M.D.. After graduating, he trained in surgery at both Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland and Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida. He was a surgeon at the University of Colorado from 1962 to 1981. He then went on to the University of Pittsburgh where the hospital became the busiest transplant center in the world. In the 1960s he improved kidney transplantation by giving patients the steroid prednisone along with the anti-rejection drug Imuran. He repeated the same steroid strategy to improve the success of liver transplantation. In 1963 he performed the first liver transplant in Denver, but it was not successful. Four years later, in 1967, he performed the first successful liver transplant on a patient who survived for a year. Since that first successful liver transplant, there has been thousands of lives that have been saved by similar operations. He also pioneered many other medical achievements during his career and earned many awards and honors for his work. He retired in 1991 from clinical and surgical service in 1991, but remained at the University of Pittsburgh as professor of surgery until his passing.
Bio by: Mr. Badger Hawkeye
Family Members
Advertisement
