Temple hires transplant surgeon from University of Pittsburgh
Temple University Hospital announced Thursday that it has applied to reactivate its heart and lung transplant programs, which it stopped earlier this year, and that it has hired a new transplant surgeon from the University of Pittsburgh.
Temple University Hospital announced Thursday that it has applied to reactivate its heart and lung transplant programs, which it stopped earlier this year, and that it has hired a new transplant surgeon from the University of Pittsburgh.
The North Philadelphia hospital inactivated its heart transplant program in July because of low patient volume. It stopped doing lung transplants in May after the departure of its primary lung-transplant surgeon.
Temple's heart-transplant program had been averaging five transplants a year, half the number required to meet federal quality standards. The Pennsylvania Department of Health had said that the lung program had lower-than-expected survival rates.
Temple said it applied to the United Network for Organ Sharing to reactivate the programs last month. That process could take several months, said T. Sloan Guy, chief of cardiothoracic surgery.
Guy, who started at Temple six months ago, said the hospital is "reengineering" its transplant programs while it waits for approval. He declined to say how many transplants he wants the hospital to do, but said, "We don't want to be a low-volume program."
Yoshiya Toyoda, 46, began work at Temple two months ago. He is vice chief of cardiothoracic surgery, surgical director of heart and lung transplantion and surgical director of mechanical circulatory support. He had been division chief of cardiothoracic transplantation at the University of Pittsburgh, which has a much more robust program.
Temple said that Toyoda has performed more than 450 heart, lung and heart-lung transplants over the last eight years.
Guy described Toyoda as "one of the country's best transplant surgeons."
Toyoda received his training at Kobe University School of Medicine in Japan.
The hospital did not make Toyoda available to speak to a reporter Thursday. Guy said the new job is an opportunity to build a program from the ground up.
Contact staff writer Stacey Burling at 215-854-4944 or sburling@phillynews.com.