Even the highest-volume kidney transplant centers average fewer than two transplants a day, so conducting 10 in just 2 days is an extreme rarity. But that’s what happened at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, during a stressful — but successful — Labor Day weekend.
Vanderbilt’s transplant teams were called in on that Saturday and Sunday to perform five procedures each day after 10 kidneys from deceased donors were matched with patients.
“It felt like a steady stream and flow throughout the weekend, where we kept receiving organ offers and coordinated across our teams to make it happen,” said Rachel Forbes, MD, associate professor of surgery and chief of kidney and pancreas transplantation.
For just a single transplant, a multidisciplinary team of about 150 people typically works…