Dr. Thomas Starzl, the first person to perform a liver transplant, has passed away
Orange County, CA - March 6th 2017 - Just days away from his 91st birthday, Thomas Starzl, the first person to carry out a liver transplant, has passed away.
Born in Le Mars, Iowa, 1926, Starzl became interested in medicine during his mother’s battle with breast cancer. Anna Laura Starzl was a nurse herself, leaving Thomas with the utmost respect for doctors and their treatment of his mother towards the end of her life. Due to this Thomas was inspired to pursue medicine and received a degree in biology from Westminster College. Unfortunately his mother passed away that same year.
Starzl then went on to attend Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, where he found his love of surgery and spent an additional year to complete two degrees; a Master of Science degree in anatomy and a doctorate in neurophysiology. His post-graduate surgical training took him to Johns Hopkins in 1952, the University of Miami in 1956, and then back to his alma mater Northwestern University in 1959 before joining the faculty at the University of Colorado as a surgeon and researcher in 1962. During these years he researched transplantation of organs in dogs.
He credited the species with helping him complete transplants successfully, but added it was an area of pain for him as he realizes the sacrifices they made.
On March 1st, 1963, Starzl and his team attempted the first human liver transplant on a 3 year old who suffered from biliary atresia. The operation could not be completed as the boy’s blood would not clot and the child died. The same fate met the next 4 patients who were given clot promoting medication, which allowed them to survive the operation, however the clots went on to get lodged in patient lungs generating abscesses and other damages. With these setbacks, the team put their transplant procedures on hold and diverted their attention to working on anti-rejection therapy.
In 1967 the team tried again reconvened to renew their efforts in liver transplantation
The procedure proved successful and Starzl was garnered the title of the "father of transplantation.”
He continued his work on transplantation by researching transplants from cadavers, anti-rejection drugs, and pioneering animal-to-human liver transplants to extend life in cases where human donors are unavailable. Despite being considered one of the best surgeons of the 20th century, Starzl himself said several times that he didn’t like surgery.
In his autobiography, The Puzzle People, he wrote, “I had an intense fear of failing the patients who had placed their health or life in my hands,” and when that life was lost, he wrote, "Instead of blotting out the failures, I remembered these forever."
Now the world remembers Dr. Thomas Starzl, the man who refused to give up what others called impossible.
March 11, 1926 - March 3, 2017
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Dr. Thomas Starzl, the first person to perform a liver transplant, has passed away Orange County, CA – March 6th 2017 – Just days away from his 91st birthday, Thomas Starzl, the first person to carry out a liver transplant, has passed away. Born in Le Mars, Iowa, 1926, Starzl became interested in medicine during his […]