Progress Report Division & Section Reports
Liver Disease and Transplantation
Jean C. Emond, MD
Liver Disease and Transplantation
Backed by the strong institutional commitment of Columbia University Medical Center, and in conjunction with NewYork Weill Cornell, the Department of Surgery established its newest division on July 1, 1997.
This was the first step in the development of a comprehensive, integrated liver disease center focused on patient care, clinical innovation and scientific progress.
This initiative also creates one of the first liver centers to be built from the ground up, dedicated to treating all aspects of liver disease and conceived as a multidisciplinary program from its inception. Over time, the program should evolve into an international leader.
The Division of Abdominal Organ Transplantation has been carefully planned to build on a large, existing transplant infrastructure at CUMC, and it renews the hospital's commitment to participate in the New York Center for Liver Transplantation.
Our primary focus initially is the pediatric component of the program, which is being coordinated with Children's Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian. With the surgical phase of the overall program in place a major early priority is to complete staff recruitment, specifically of senior leaders in hepatology in adult and pediatric medicine. Additional recruiting activities for an anesthesiologist, nurses, faculty partner, transplant coordinator and data manager have been completed.
The CUMC liver team will implement techniques and protocols that replicate the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) philosophy of quality and highly cost-effective liver transplant care, which has been widely recognized as a national model.
My own experience at UCSF (as well as at the University of Chicago) included the first living related liver transplants in the country and the first split liver surgery.
In the first two years of the CUMC program, we want to assemble the team, develop infrastructure and establish a network of referral and clinical care relationships with health care providers throughout the region.
We hope that in three to five years we will be providing basic training in liver diseases for students and residents as well as exposure for doctors from all over the world who will come here to understand complex procedures and protocols.
Longer term, between five and 10 years, we hope to achieve international leadership in certain innovative techniques, surgical tools, clinical outcomes research and basic science research related to liver biology.
Division of Liver Disease and Transplantation
http://www.livermd.org
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