Arnold G. Diethelm, M.D., performed the first kidney transplant in the state in UAB Hospital in Birmingham May 8, 1968, and kept going.
UAB Medicine, which has since has successfully completed more than 14,000 organ transplants, will commemorate that historic day May 8 with a celebration of 50 years of transplantation that expanded to include heart, lung, liver and pancreas transplants, plus multi-organ procedures.
In the years since that first surgery, UAB has become one of America's premier transplant centers, even pioneering techniques to make it possible to use donated kidneys that once were considered incompatible. UAB’s ongoing kidney chain, a linked series of transplant surgeries among unrelated living donors, already has given 94 people a new lease on life.
Read more stories about the UAB Kidney Chain here.