Abdominal Transplant Surgery Fellowship News

Debra Sudan, MD, Chief of the Division of Abdominal Transplant Surgery, helps Singapore team perform groundbreaking intestinal transplants.

Mary E. Klotman, MD, dean of the Duke University School of Medicine, announced today the creation of the Onyekwere E. Akwari, MD, Endowed Professorship, and named Lisa McElroy, MD, MS, assistant professor of surgery and population health sciences, the inaugural recipient of this new professorship.

In the wake of the current pandemic, administrative team members had to quickly shift gears to a virtual work environment to ensure the safety of patients and frontline workers. The shift has greatly impacted the Program Coordinators and administrative staff of the Section’s education programs, who now are organizing some of the programs’ most important events of the year from afar.

In 2019, the Duke heart, lung, liver, and kidney transplant programs experienced unprecedented volume growth: more than 20% for most programs. With 521 total transplants performed in 2019, Duke Health now ranks 8th among U.S. transplant programs.

A donor’s altruism leads to the nation’s second HIV-positive living donor kidney transplant. Last month at Duke University Hospital, Karl Neumann’s donation led to the first live kidney donation under the HOPE Act in North Carolina and the Southeast region, and the second in the United States.