Watch: Drs. Gedaly and Shah on UK Transplant Center's success, safety and family-centered care
If you’re a transplant recipient, donor or patient waiting on an organ, you may feel scared because of the pandemic. At the UK Transplant Center, we’re here for you.
Our expert team specializes in caring for transplant patients and guiding them through the transplant process, from the initial consultation through surgery and beyond, and despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we will perform over 200 solid-organ transplants this year – making UK the largest transplant center in the Commonwealth.
We recently sat down with Dr. Roberto Gedaly, director of the UK Transplant Center, and Dr. Malay Shah, director of the Liver Transplant Program at the UK Transplant Center, about our safety measures and precautions, the patient and family-centered care we offer and the over 50 years of success we have had providing second chances for our patients and their families through life-saving solid-organ transplants.
Tell us about the UK Transplant Center. How have you met the unique challenges of COVID-19 and 2020?
Dr. Roberto Gedaly: In 2020, with all these issues related to COVID, we're still going to probably do more than 200 solid-organ transplants in our transplant center which makes University of Kentucky the biggest transplant center in the Commonwealth.
Patients can feel safe and secure coming here to UK HealthCare. And we have done significant accommodations in our clinic and the inpatient service to the care of transplant patients during these difficult times.
What other precautions have been taken?
Dr. Malay Shah: As everybody knows, COVID's been a huge impact in our society, not just in the healthcare sector. What we've been trying to do is try to take precautions as directed by the CDC and other health-care institutions in terms of mask wearing, social distancing, we screen patients.
Particularly, when they're called in for transplant, they receive rapid COVID screens to make sure that they're not positive for COVID before we transplant them.
Tell us more about the care offered at the UK Transplant Center.
Dr. Shah: We go out of our way to proactively educate our patients that once they receive a transplant, they are potentially more susceptible to COVID. I think we provide the best care. I mean, of course, I'm biased, but we really do.
We have a patient family-centered approach towards patient care, and we have a robust transplant hepatology team that does a great job in managing these patients with liver disease before they ever get the transplant.
Watch our full interview with Drs. Gedaly and Shah.
