NAMES IN THE NEWS : Transplant Doctor on the Mend
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PITTSBURGH — Dr. Thomas Starzl was expected to be back seeing patients this week after undergoing coronary surgery in the hospital he helped make famous for innovative transplants.
The 64-year-old surgeon was released today from Presbyterian-University Hospital, where doctors removed a blockage from his right coronary artery.
Starzl, who performed the world’s first successful liver transplant at the University of Colorado in 1967, was admitted to the hospital Sunday with chest pains.
Starzl’s physician, Dr. Bruce Wilson, ordered an angioplasty, in which a catheter was put into the artery and used to inflate a tiny balloon to clear a blockage.
“He’s doing quite well,” Wilson, director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Heart Institute, said at a news conference. “We expect a speedy recovery.”
Starzl has worked since 1981 at the University of Pittsburgh hospital, which last year performed 463 liver transplants and 210 kidney transplants.
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