Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently performed its first pediatric dual heart/kidney transplant on a 13-year-old girl from Chattanooga.

Since 1961, the Eye Bank Association of America has provided donors for more than 1.5 million corneal transplants nationwide. And for nearly 25 years, the group has celebrated corneal transplant recipients, promoted awareness of the need to donate and recognized donors and families during National Eye Donor Month in March.

As the largest heart transplant program in the Southeast, the Vanderbilt Transplant Center is ranked No. 1 in volume for the combined adult and pediatric heart transplant program, according to the latest Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) data.

Twenty-five years ago, Julie Damon’s family was preparing to say their goodbyes. Comatose and on life support at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) with liver failure, the options for the 45-year-old wife and mother of two were slipping away.

Because donor organs are scarce, understanding the mortality risk associated with heart transplantation is an important consideration when evaluating patients for transplant.

Lindsay Ramsey Smith, MSN, R.N., a quality consultant for the Vanderbilt Transplant Center (VTC), recently uncovered some interesting data that sparked a center-wide improvement project.

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center (VTC) is expanding its footprint into Alabama with the opening of a satellite pre-transplant evaluation clinic for kidney patients.