News Round Up

John M. Kratz, M.D., Receives South Carolina’s Highest Honor

Gov. Henry McMaster has awarded the Order of the Palmetto to John M. Kratz, M.D., Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the Medical University of South Carolina. The award is the highest civilian honor awarded to citizens of South Carolina for their extraordinary lifetime service and achievements. MUSC President David J. Cole, M.D., introduced U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace to present the award on behalf of Gov. McMaster during Kratz’ retirement dinner on Saturday, March 25, at the Carolina Yacht Club. Read More

Double Take: How one donor's two organs gave another man infinite possibilities for the future

A military veteran and 4th degree black belt, Cosmore wasn’t the kind of guy to just sit around on the couch. But one day, he did. And then he did it another. Soon his ankles began to swell, and his heart started to race. Very quickly, doctors in Savannah, Ga., diagnosed Suttle with heart failure. At 57 years old, Suttle was told his kidney was shot and his heart was functioning at 25% efficiency. If he didn’t get new ones – and soon – he would die. “It’s one thing to have one organ fail,” transplant surgeon Joseph Scalea, M.D. said. “But it goes from urgency to emergency when you’re talking about two.”

According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, double organ transplants account for less than 1% of all transplant surgeries in the U.S. On January 1, MUSC Health surgeons Scalea and Arman Kilic, M.D. gave Cosmore two new organs – Kilic the heart; Scalea the kidney – as well as a second chance at life. There have been only about 20 other patients before Cosmore that had received a simultaneous heart-kidney transplant in the U.S. using a DCD donor. Read More

Largest internal living-donor chain at MUSC gives new life to four patients

Thanks to the generosity of four people, four more received new kidneys and with that, new lives. The donation of a “Good Samaritan,” or someone with no connection to the donor, lit the spark for an eight-person exchange that helped four people suffering from kidney failure. "This is the largest internal kidney chain at MUSC to date," said Tracy Rice, M.D., surgical director of the Living Donor Program. In addition to growing the Living Donor Program, Dr. Rice piloted a program to bring robotics into kidney transplantation. MUSC performed its first robotic kidney transplant surgery in 2021, and by the end of this chain, Rice had completed the 60th. This program has not only helped doctors to be quicker and less invasive in their surgeries, it has also improved recovery time for donors. Read more.

MUSC Health first in South Carolina to implant novel device for patients with complex aortic disease

Following the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the Gore TAG thoracic branch endoprosthesis (TBE) device for treating patients with complex aortic arch disease, MUSC Health announced it was the first medical center in the state of South Carolina to implant the commercially available device. The TBE device provides a solution for patients with complex tears in difficult-to-reach anatomy – one that does not require an open surgical procedure.

During a thoracic branched endograft procedure, MUSC Health vascular surgeons and cardiac surgeons work together on the case. This type of multidisciplinary team approach is the key to success in complex aortic surgeries. “With the TBE device that is now commercially available, we are able to extend the repair beyond the subclavian artery closer to the heart without sacrificing the subclavian artery,” said vascular surgeon Mathew Wooster, M.D. Read more.

Pediatric, adult cancer teams collaborate for robotic surgery on rare cancer

Adult and pediatric doctors pooled their expertise to ensure that Ivan Young would have few physical reminders of an extraordinary lung cancer surgery. Robotic surgery performed by Barry Gibney, D.O., made it all possible. “I think that laparoscopy and other minimally invasive approaches were really just a stopgap until we developed the technology to do things robotically. The advantages are so, so much greater,” Gibney said. Read more. 

Faculty Awards and Recognitions

Rana Pullatt, M.D. presented the Keynote Lecture for OSSICON 2023, the National Conference of Obesity & Metabolic Surgery Society of India in Mumbai, India on March 3, 2023. Dr. Pullatt also chaired two sessions and gave one presentation on Complex Revisional Bariatrics and Duodenal Switch during SAGES 2023 in Montreal, Quebec (March 29-April 1).

Kate Engelhardt, M.D. MS has been named a Hollings Cancer Center Clinical Scholar, funding her proposal entitled Development and Implementation of a Novel Shared Decision-Making Tool to Support Cancer Care Delivery Concordant with Patient Treatment Preferences. Since its inception in 2017, the HCC Clinical Scholar program focused on providing outstanding physician-scientists time to focus on cancer-related investigations. By fostering their careers and enabling state-of-the-art cancer relevant research, the program aims to facilitate breakthrough discoveries that directly improve clinical care of cancer patients.

Heather Evans, M.D., MS received notification she is the recipient of the Rosalind Franklin Society Special Award in Science for the article "Improving Antibiotic Stewardship in Acute Appendicitis through Risk-based Empiric Treatment Selection," published in Surgical Infections Journal. This Award is given to the best paper of the year by a woman or underrepresented minority in each of the Mary Ann Liebert Inc. journals in health, medicine. and biotechnology and winners will be officially announced in July to coincide with Rosalind Franklin's birthday.

T. Konrad Rajab, M.D received notice of an NIH R41 Award in the amount of $452,184 for his project studying partial heart transplantation in piglets. The STTR Program (R41 and R42 research grant mechanisms) supports cooperative research and development projects that have potential for commercialization.