Vanderbilt Transplant Center Archive — Page 11 of 16

Two women stand beneath a sign reading “Vanderbilt Transplant & Surgical Unit.”
August 21, 2019

Stephanie Hays’ own body destroyed her kidneys. Luckily, her daughter had a spare.

The operation was a success; Roni’s kidney began functioning in her mom right away. “Now she’s stuck with me forever,” Roni joked.

By Matt Batcheldor
Two women sit together in chairs in an indoor seating area, smiling toward the camera; one wears a light blue shirt and the other a pink shirt.
August 1, 2019

VUMC performs its first transplant using rehabilitated lungs

For the first time at Vanderbilt, doctors have performed a transplantation with donated lungs that were rehabilitated using a procedure called ex vivo lung perfusion.

By Matt Batcheldor
Two women pose indoors near a decorated Christmas tree; one wears a red-and-white striped shirt, and the other wears a white medical coat.
April 25, 2019

Kristie Kuzy decided to donate a kidney to a stranger. Her generosity initiated the first three-recipient kidney transplant chain in the history of Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The amazing and improbable story of how it all fell into place

By Matt Batcheldor
A speaker stands at a podium beneath a “DONATE LIFE” banner reading “Honoring Organ, Tissue Donors,” while attendees listen in the foreground.
April 25, 2019

Flag-raising ceremony honors gift of organ donation

Eighty individuals donated the gift of their organs at Vanderbilt University Medical Center last year, more than any other hospital in the nation, and they and their families were saluted on April 16 at the 10th annual Donate Life Flag-Raising Ceremony.

By Matt Batcheldor
Three masked surgeons in blue sterile gowns work together during an open abdominal operation in an operating room; surgical instruments and the exposed operative field are visible.
April 23, 2019

Transplant centers, patients unite to stop new organ sharing policy that threatens longer waits for a liver

Vanderbilt University Medical Center and 13 other highly regarded liver transplant centers have filed a lawsuit aimed at stopping Federal policy changes that are slated to take effect Tuesday, April 30, that will affect thousands of patients across the Southeast and Midwest waiting for donor livers.

By John Howser
Tim Lowell, here with his wife, Ginger, was Tennessee’s first total artificial heart transplant patient. He recently received a permanent donor heart.
March 28, 2019

First artificial heart patient gets permanent replacement

Tim Lowell of Hernando, Mississippi, received the first total artificial heart in the state of Tennessee when the cardiac surgery team at Vanderbilt Health placed the device in his chest on Sept. 26, 2018. The mechanical heart kept him alive for nearly three months until a matching human donor heart became available and he was transplanted on Dec. 16, 2018, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

By Matt Batcheldor