With the help of Vanderbilt and other transplant centers, Ukraine has developed a growing transplant program in the country in the last four years.

Bill Jackson received a heart and double lung transplant, an unusual procedure performed only a handful of times each year at VUMC and one that can occur at only the most specialized transplant centers.

All that’s in addition to her day jobs as a pharmacist and diabetes educator just outside of Jackson, Mississippi.

Wright and C. Wright Pinson, MBA, MD, performed Vanderbilt’s first liver transplant in 1991. This year, VUMC celebrated its 3,000th liver transplant.

Why were there so many kidney transplants in a weekend? Rachel Forbes, MD, MBA, said it was purely happenstance. All the transplants were the result of matching kidneys from deceased donors being discovered at once for 10 patients.

The hearing was a one-year check-in on the implementation of the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act to maintain a national registry for organ matching.

While the surgery was a milestone for the hospital, for the pediatric patient and her family, it represented an answer to many prayers.