GIA 2007 Excellence Winner

The Robert G. Fenley Writing Award - General Staff Writing

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Only Starzl Dared To...
A "Monornaniacal" Effort Led to a Cure for Liver
Disease and a New Field of Medicine

Excerpt from article:

John Sassano recalls what it was like to be an anesthesiologist when Tom Starzl performed the first liver transplants in Pittsburgh. Starzl was the first to attempt such surgery.

A professor of music had come to Pittsburgh from North Dakota in 1981, desperately ill, descending into a mental fog. Eventually, his hands began to move like a metronome—doctors call that the "liver flap." He staked out a hospital elevator where, sitting on a chair, he would grasp white coats and the hands of startled nurses as they passed and demand a liver. By the time an organ became available, it seemed like an exercise in futility. His kidneys had failed, and his liver had ceased to make clotting factors.

The professor lay in the ICU for six weeks with an open incision because of an infection. Ten years later, the patient wrote to Starzl describing his return to music, how he became the academic dean of his college, and how he thought of Starzl with gratitude every day.

To meet the most-cited scientist in clinical medicine, author of some 2,400 publications, recipient of the National Medal of Science (in February), without whom the field of organ transplantation would be either unrecognizable or nonexistent today, you need to go to the third floor of the Pizza Hut Building. You'll know you have the correct door when you see the torn piece of paper taped to the window that reads, "Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute."

Read the full narrative (Word document)

Contact: Chuck Staresinic, cnsst23+@pitt.edu

Back to GIA 2007 Awards for Excellence Winners

Contact Us    © 1995-2008 AAMC    Terms and Conditions    Privacy Statement