Welcoming the new leader Dr . Kaplan says he accepted the position with Baylor Scott & White Health because it offered him an opportunity for strategic leadership . He also appreciated the system ’ s commitment to patient care , and was excited to work with hospital leadership and members of the transplant team already in place . “ It was the right mix of people and opportunity ,” he says .
Dr . Papaconstantinou believes Dr . Kaplan will “ lead the group to innovations , to increase options for transplantation , and also to maintain and augment our highquality outcomes .” Other leaders in the transplant program also praised Dr . Kaplan ’ s arrival . Chittoor Bhaskar Sai-Sudhakar , MD , division chief of cardiothoracic surgery and surgical director of the heart transplant program at Scott & White Medical Center – Temple , says “ He brings a wealth of experience . He is wellknown in the field and will bring a different dimension to the transplant program .” Dr . Kaplan will also be actively recruiting additional team members to help cardiology leadership .
“ This is a pivotal change for the program ,” says Jacqueline Lappin , MD , surgical director of the kidney and pancreas transplant program at Temple . Dr . Lappin , who leads the kidney and pancreas transplant program , says Dr . Kaplan ’ s vast transplantation knowledge and experience will drive the Temple program to greater heights . “ Transplant is not just about doing great operations ,” she says . “ You also need to have great infrastructure and
“ We want to be the most clinically innovative center in Texas and one of the true clinical innovators in the country . We also want to be considered the center that treats patients with the greatest compassion and respect .”
— Bruce Kaplan , MD
great teams , and great intellectual guidance in understanding the whole process of transplant , and that ’ s where Dr . Kaplan comes in . He really is a world-class leader in transplantation .”
A shared goal for growth supported by laboratory efforts Dr . Papaconstantinou says hospital leadership is committed to expanding transplant services while raising standards of patient care . “ We all have a common vision ,” he says , “ to develop an innovative transplant program that provides the highest quality outcomes and provides services to a diverse and broad population base that extends beyond Central Texas .” Dr . Kaplan says , “ Our goal is to get more organs for people who need them and treat them with great human dignity and decency .”
One way to do that is through the continued development of an immunology laboratory , because surgically placing a donor ’ s organ in a recipient ’ s body is actually not the most
challenging aspect of transplantation , Dr . Kaplan says . “ The most difficult part is working out how to overcome the immune system ’ s desire to rid itself of a foreign protein ,” he says . “ The single greatest factor in how long someone will live [ after transplantation ] is how quickly they get a transplant . But , this natural immune system response is one of the things that makes finding a good organ match so difficult , and why some patients have to wait so long for a transplant .”
To help transplant surgeons overcome these barriers is the transplant immunology laboratory , which recently welcomed a new director , Marcelo Pando Rigal , PhD . Like Dr . Kaplan , Dr . Pando arrived in May from the Mayo Clinic in Arizona . “ He is one of the best histocompatibility experts in the country . It was quite an achievement for the system to bring someone like that here ,” Dr . Kaplan says .
Dr . Lappin looks forward to the advancements Dr . Pando will contribute to the program . “ When you see an organ and you see a patient ,
16 THE CATALYST Fall 17 | bswhealth . com