SUNY Downstate Supports Organ Donor Enrollment Day with LiveOnNY
Oct 13, 2015
Brooklyn, NY – SUNY Downstate Medical Center and LiveOnNY continued their efforts to raise awareness of the importance of organ donation by recently hosting the first annual Donor Enrollment Day at Downstate.
The event was held in the lobby at Downstate’s University Hospital of Brooklyn to give patients, staff, and community residents convenient access to organ donor enrollment. Downstate sponsors the only transplant program in Brooklyn. The busy program has a long history of accomplishments and includes board certified transplant surgeons and a full team of transplant nephrologists, as well as highly trained transplant nurse specialists, social workers, and dieticians. In addition, clinical transplant coordinators and nurse practitioners conduct pre- and post-transplant teaching and follow-up care and remain in close contact with patients and families.
"We work closely with LiveOnNY, formerly known as the New York Organ Donor Network," said Devon John, MD, chief of transplantation surgery at SUNY Downstate. "Together, we work in partnership to support donor families and transplant recipients, and to raise awareness of the critical need for life-saving organ donations."
“We had a very successful day,” added Leslie Neve, senior coordinator of Risk Management/QAPI, who staffed the sign-up table, along with kidney transplant recipient John Morais, LiveOnNY's Alfred McDonell, and School of Public Health students Jessica Akimova and Jinhui Zhao, who are doing internships with Risk Management/QAPI. “There was a lot of interest in donation and about our program. It’s important that we continue to get the word out.”
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About SUNY Downstate Medical Center
SUNY Downstate Medical Center, founded in 1860, was the first medical school in the United States to bring teaching out of the lecture hall and to the patient’s bedside. A center of innovation and excellence in research and clinical service delivery, SUNY Downstate Medical Center comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, School of Public Health, University Hospital of Brooklyn, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively.
SUNY Downstate ranks twelfth nationally in the number of alumni who are on the faculty of American medical schools. More physicians practicing in New York City have graduated from SUNY Downstate than from any other medical school.