Program Overview
The fellowship in Transplant Surgery is a two-year program.
Training takes place at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian (MSCHONY), one of the largest medical institutions in the United States.
The medical center is the teaching hospital for the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The proximity of the medical school offers easy access to library and research facilities.
Each year, approximately 250 kidney transplants and 150 liver transplants are performed at the medical center. The hospital functions as a tertiary referral center and an acute care facility for a large inner city population, and consequently the case mix is skewed towards unusual and complex problems.
Dr. Benjamin Samstein, Assistant Professor of Surgery, is the Transplant Surgery Fellowship Program Director.
Dr. James Guarrera, Assistant Professor of Surgery, serves as Associate Program Director.
 Benjamin Samstein, MD |
 James Guarrera, MD, FACS |
The liver transplant program is one of the busiest programs in the country. Under the leadership of Dr. Jean Emond, Thomas S. Zimmer Professor of Surgery, the program has an international reputation for living donor liver transplant and hepatobiliary surgery. Dr. Emond and Dr. Christoph Broelsch performed the first living donated liver transplant in 1989. Since then Dr. Emond has been a leader in living donated liver transplantation and is a principal investigator in the NIH-sponsored A2ALL study, Adult to Adult Living Liver Transplant. The liver program was built from the inception as a multidisciplinary unit. The program treats patients with a wide variety of liver problems and as a result, the fellows have the opportunity for significant volume of hepatobiliary surgery.
Approximately 150 hepatobiliary operations are performed each year by surgical staff. These include more than 75 hepatectomies of which more than 30 are performed laparoscopically. The live donor liver transplant program is one of the most active in the United States performing 20-25 LDLTs annually.
The kidney arm of the program offers an equally broad experience. Under the guidance of Lloyd Ratner, Professor of Surgery, the Renal and Pancreas Transplant Program exposes the fellows to a wide range of kidney transplants. We perform approximately 125 live donor compatible transplants and approximately 125 deceased donor renal transplants including 2:1 transplants, pediatric donors and ECD donors. Dr. Ratner pioneered the use of laparoscopy for donor nephrectomy. We have a very busy paired donor exchanges, or swaps, program.
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The pancreas transplant program started in 2008 and we have performed 10 pancreas transplant each of the past two years.
