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Dr. James Kirklin, Professor of Surgery and Director of the Heart and Lung Transplant Program at UAB. |
Dr. James Kirklin, director of cardiothoracic transplantation, joined the UAB faculty in 1981 after receiving his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his cardiac surgical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dr. James Kirklin has been recognized in every edition of the book The Best Doctors in America (published by Woodward White) since 1992.
Dr. Kirklin and his colleagues have published more than 200 scientific publications on heart surgery and heart transplantation.
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Dr. Robert C. Bourge, Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Disease; Professor of Medicine, Radiology, Surgery; and Medical Director of UAB Cardiac Transplantation. |
Dr. Robert C. Bourge is the medical director of the UAB Cardiac Transplant Program. Dr. Bourge joined the UAB faculty in 1984 after receiving his M.D. from Louisiana State University and his cardiology training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dr. Bourge is recognized for his work in heart transplant medicine in the book The Best Doctors in America. He has been a primary investigator for clinical trials of numerous new drugs for the treatment of heart failure and for prevention of rejection after cardiac transplantation, including:
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Dr. David C. McGiffin, Associate Professor of Surgery, is deeply committed to research in heart and lung transplantation. |
Every year, more than 5,000 patients in the United States are listed for heart or lung transplantation, while enough heart and lung organs are available for only about 2,500 heart transplants and 1,000 lung and heart-lung transplant procedures. Over 200 patients scheduled for cardiac transplantation die each year awaiting suitable donors. Safe expansion of the donor pool is a major focus of UAB thoracic transplant research.
Dr. David McGiffin, associate professor of surgery, is an internationally recognized expert in heart and lung transplantation. He received his M.D. at the University of Queensland Medical School in Australia, and subsequently underwent cardiothoracic training at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. After establishing a heart transplant program in Brisbane, Dr. McGiffin joined the UAB Thoracic Transplant Team in 1993. He has established laboratory investigations into the preservation of marginal heart and lung donors in order to increase the donor pool, including:
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Dr. David Naftel leads in analyzing databases focused on predictors of early and late outcomes after transplantation. |
In the current era, health care strategies are focusing on cost containment and more efficient utilization and delivery of health care. Outcomes research is playing a major role in the process of allocating precious health care resources. To maximize survival following thoracic transplantation, outcomes research through multi-institutional studies has become a primary focus of UAB clinical research in cardiothoracic transplantation.
Dr. David Naftel, professor of surgery and a Ph.D. in statistics, provides the vital expertise necessary for sophisticated statistical analyses of two large multi-center databases. This important data focuses on predictors of early and late outcome after cardiac transplantation.
UAB acts as the data analysis center for these databases:
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Dr. James George, Director in Immunologic Research in the Heart-Lung Transplantation Program. |
Dr. James George, Ph.D. in immunology, directs the immunologic research for the Heart and Lung Transplant Program. He has pursued basic laboratory investigations of T-lymphocytes, the critical cells in the rejection process of transplanted organs. Dr. George's current research covers:
When a patient wakes up after surgery, he or she can already sense a change in the quality of life. This is due in part to the work of the Heart Transplant Intensive Care Unit, which is totally dedicated to the care of patients with advanced heart failure and heart and lung transplant recipients. UAB's unit is one of only a few such specialized units in the United States.
One of the most important determinants of the success of heart or lung transplantation is the quality of life after transplantation. Connie White Williams, R.N., M.S.N., a UAB transplant coordinator, is co-investigator for a large multi-institutional study of quality-of-life issues following cardiac transplantation.
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Connie White Williams, UAB Transplant Coordinator, studies quality-of-life issues after transplantation. |