The Historic Triple Transplant
In this episode of Road to Resilience, host Stephen Calabria speaks with Drs. Ani Anyanwu and Sandy Florman about performing New York State’s first-ever triple transplant of a heart, liver, and kidney. The doctors explain how such rare procedures arise from urgent patient needs and require unprecedented levels of coordination among multiple surgical and medical teams. Central to the story is patient Mack Godbee, whose resilience and recovery highlight the life-saving potential of teamwork and medical innovation. The conversation underscores the vital role of organ donation and collaboration in shaping the future of transplant surger
Stephen Calabria: [00:00:00:00] For the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, this is Road to Resilience, a podcast about facing adversity. I'm your host, Stephen Calabria. Mount Sinai is director of podcasting. On this episode, we welcome doctors Annie Anyanwu and Doctor Sandy Forman, who pulled off the very first triple transplant of a heart, kidney and liver in New York State history.
[00:00:27:09] Gentlemen, welcome.
Dr. Florman: [00:00:28:26] Thank you.
Stephen Calabria: [00:00:30:05] So our first question really is a general one. How do doctors like yourself get involved in transplanting multiple organs? I assume this is not something that most people have to go through in medical school.
Dr. Anyanwu: [00:00:46:00] Well, I think it's how do we get involved in transplanting organs in the first place. So I think we the multi-organ transplant is just a combination of different transplant procedures. So basically it's a combination of doing for in this case a heart transplant a liver transplant and a kidney transplant. And really the only way differs. The main way differs from transplanted single organs.