Contemporary Pancreas and Small Bowel Transplantation

Ashesh Piyush Shah is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University and the Surgical Director of Kidney Transplantation for the Jefferson Transplant Institute. He is board-certified in general surgery. Dr. Shah earned his medical degree at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He remained at Indiana University to complete his general surgery training. He completed his Multi-organ Abdominal Transplant Fellowship at Indiana University, training in liver, kidney, pancreas, and intestinal transplantation. Dr. James W. Lim was born in South Korea but grew up in St. Louis, MO, attending the University of Missouri at Kansas City’s 6-Year Medical Program immediately after high school. From the Midwest, he went to Philadelphia, PA, for his general surgery residency at Albert Einstein Medical Center, where he was recruited to join their fellowship program in Transplant Surgery upon completion of his residency. This clinical experience led to his being accepted at the University of Pittsburgh into their Multi-organ Transplant Fellowship Program (now known as the Thomas E. Starzl Transplant Institute) under the tutelage of Dr. John Fung. Dr. Lim aspired to add to his extensive transplant training by going to the University of Chicago, to obtain greater pediatric liver transplant experience, and, while there, was able to train under the likes of Drs. Richard Thistlethwaite, Jim Piper, E. Steve Woodle, Mike Millis, and David Cronin. This extensive training served him well with his first job at the University of Maryland, where, during his time, they had the second largest pancreastransplant program in the country. In addition, Dr. Lim helped grow the country’s largest laparoscopic donor nephrectomy program while at the University of Maryland. He was recruited by Dr. Jim Piper to become the Director of Pancreas Transplant at Westchester Medical Center and he developed that program to be the largest solitary pancreas program at the time in New York. His successful pancreas transplant experience led to his being recruited to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) at New Brunswick (now Rutgers University) as the Director of their Pancreas Program as well as the Co-director of the Living Donor Program. During his tenure, he helped the transplant program grow to be the second largest in the state of New Jersey. Dr. Lim’s multi-organ experience allowed him to join his mentor, Francisco Badosa, as the Chief of Kidney and Living Donor Transplant at Lankenau Medical Center. The expertise with growing a transplant program led to his being recruited to Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) as their Chief of Transplant. HUMC was searching for a candidate to lead their program which became inactive and unable to perform transplants due to their difficulties with quality and patient safety. Led by Dr. Lim, extensive improvements to quality, regulations, and, most of all, patient safety were made, and they successfully reactivated their program. Dr. Lim moved with his wife, Carolyn, and their two daughters, and most recently joined the transplant program in Denver at Porter Adventist Hospital and is hoping to continue to make positive improvements to their program as well.

History of Multivisceral Transplantation.- Modern TPN.- Central line management and intestinal failure.- Intestinal rehab v intestinal transplantation.- MVT: Indications and contraindications.- MVT: Complications.- MVT: The operation.- The donor operation.- Pathology of Intestinal Transplantation.- Viral infections after intestinal transplantation.- Post multivisceral malignancy.- Graft v host disease after multivisceral transplant.- Autotransplantation.- UNOS and bowel transplantation.- NET and Multivisceral Transplantation.- Cell therapy, tissue engineering and intestinal failure.- Live donor intestinal transplantation.- The role of the Transplant Coordinator.- Psychosocial issues in intestinal transplantation.