Temple University Hospital Aims To Bring Back Heart And Lung Transplant Programs
By John McDevitt
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Temple University Hospital in North Philadelphia wants to bring back its heart and lung transplant programs.
Temple did away with heart and lung transplants earlier in the year because of a low number of patients, but now the hospital wants to revamp things.
It applied to the United Network for Organ Sharing in November to reinstate its transplant programs. A new, highly respected, transplant surgeon from the University of Pittsburgh was hired; 46-year-old Yoshiya Toyoda.
"We're rebuilding this program because we feel its essential to our community, so we started with Yoshi," said Dr. T. Sloan Guy, Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. "We have other recruitments underway, but Yoshi was obviously the first and most important one to rebuilding the transplant program."
Over the last eight years, Toyoda has performed more than 450 heart, lung and heart-lung transplants.
"Our primary problem was that we really needed a very experienced transplant surgeon," added Guy. "We recruited Doctor Yoshiya Toyoda who is clearly one of the country's best transplant surgeons."
