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Methodist Transplant Hospital Marks A Milestone

Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital
Chane' Gildon, Matthias Kapturczak, MD, and Stephenie Gardiner celebrate the 200th living donor kidney transplant performed at San Antonio's Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital.

Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospitalin San Antonio is celebrating a successful year for living donor kidney donations. The hospital performed 200 of these patient to patient surgeries in 2016. That was a record for them and the greatest number of live donor kidney transplants ever performed in a single year at any transplant center in the country.

  

The 200th recipient was a single mother of two teenage girls from Odessa. Her best friend was deemed a match and agreed to donate a kidney.

More than a hundred thousand people in the U.S. are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. Only 12,000 to 13,000 get the kidney they need each year while 5000 die waiting.

Methodist has been transplanting kidneys since 1984 and now has satellite clinics in seven other Texas cities.

Wendy Rigby is a San Antonio native who has worked as a journalist for more than 25 years. She spent two decades at KENS-TV covering health and medical news. Now, she brings her considerable background, experience and passion to Texas Public Radio.