1,800 patients,families, friends and transplant team members gathered for the event.

Reunion of a Lifetime

Patients and Doctors Celebrate 25 Years of Saving Lives. It was a joyous reunion to affirm life and reconnect with the surgeon who helped them stay alive.

Ronald W. Busuttil, M.D., Ph.D., executive chair of the Department of Surgery, celebrated an epic-sized family reunion to commemorate the 25th anniversary of UCLA’s Liver Transplant Program, which he founded in 1984 and still heads. A quarter-century after its inception, UCLA’s multidisciplinary program — the largest in the world — has performed nearly 5,000 transplants for infants, children and adults. More than 60 percent of the patients who have received transplants 20 or more years ago are still alive.

The event brought together 1,800 patients, families, friends and transplant team members for a grand picnic on February 1 to enjoy music and good food, celebrate life, pay tribute to organ donors together through a spectacular dove release, and to honor the program that has saved the lives of countless individuals and families.

Dr. Busuttil, who once saw these patients when they were near death, was now seeing them filled with life and energy. “To see these people who were unbelievably ill and then to see them now — it’s emotionally overwhelming,” he says.

Dr. Busuttil, right, hugs one of his many patients.

When UCLA’s liver transplant program got underway, there were only three others like it in the country. Now there are more than 100, many of them led by surgeons who trained at UCLA under Dr. Busuttil. Among them is Andrew M. Cameron, M.D., Ph.D., one of the transplant surgeons, who presented at a twoday scientific symposium held to mark the anniversary. He now runs the liver transplant program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and considers Dr. Busuttil one of the “true greats” in the field.

Dr. Busuttil estimates that his program’s survival rate for transplant patients is 95 percent. But he’s not satisfied with that. “We have been doing this for 25 years, and there have been many challenges, but I know it has been worth it,” Dr. Busuttil says. “And it’s going to continue to be worth it because, as I see it, it’s only going to get better and better, with improved patient outcomes.”

For more information, visit www.transplants.ucla.edu