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1st appeared
14
February
2000
Liver Foundation to Honor UCSF Chair of Surgery
The San Francisco event also honors Reginald and Maggie Green, parents of a child whose organs were donated after he was killed in Italy; in his honor they founded the Nicholas Green Foundation to support organ donation. A pioneering surgeon who introduced liver transplantation to two major medical centers, Ascher is chair of the UCSF Department of Surgery, a position she assumed in the fall of 1999. Haile Debas, MD, dean of medicine at UCSF and also a former chair of surgery, said, "There could not be a more appropriate recipient for this honor because Nancy Ascher personifies excellence. She is simply an extraordinary human being whether in her role as a clinician, as a scientist, or as a friend." In 1988, Ascher was recruited to UCSF as a professor of surgery, to establish the first liver transplant program in Northern California. She also was the founding director of the University of Minnesota’s liver transplant program in 1982. Her contributions as a surgeon and a scientist have helped to change liver transplant from a high-risk procedure to one that gives the patient a good chance to live a long and normal life. From 1991 to 1999, Ascher was chief of the liver, kidney and pancreas transplant division at UCSF, which includes one of the top five liver transplant programs in the nation. The UCSF kidney transplant program is the most experienced in the world, with more than 5,500 transplants since 1964. It serves as the major referral center for the western half of the United States. Both programs are leaders in transplants for children as well as adults and in living-donor transplants. As chair of surgery at UCSF, Ascher is the head of a group of 65 surgeons and ten research faculty members who are leaders in clinical care and second in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding for surgery research. They treat adults and children referred from the Bay Area, the western US and from around the world. They lead the surgical services at the main UCSF campus, SF General Medical Center, the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center and the outpatient center at UCSF Mount Zion. They also perform surgery at affiliated hospitals throughout Northern California. Until the 1980s, liver transplants had limited success, largely because of organ rejection. Now Ascher calls the liver the "most forgiving" organ for transplant, allowing her patients a good quality of life for many years. She has contributed directly to this success by her work in the operating room, in the clinic and in the laboratory. A surgeon with a reputation for seeking perfection in the OR, she has developed many of the technical methods that are used to transplant livers safely. Her laboratory studies of the local events that lead up to organ rejection led to new ways to detect a rejection event early, so it could be managed with medications before it became a serious problem. For some types of surgery, success means never having to see the surgeon again once the patient recovers. For transplant patients, success means keeping the new organ healthy for many years. Ascher and her colleagues stay closely involved with the care of their patients for a lifetime -- she still corresponds with patients she transplanted in Minnesota. More than 1,000 patients and their families attend UCSF’s annual liver transplant reunion. Ascher earned her undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and completed a general surgery residency and clinical transplantation fellowship at the University of Minnesota. She is president-elect of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of many other medical societies. Ascher has published more than 350 articles in medical and scientific journals, and has taught a generation of transplant surgeons and scientists, most now practicing in academic medical centers around the country. She also teaches general surgery students, and was honored two years in a row with the UCSF Surgery Residents’ Award for Excellence in teaching. Links: Source: Janet Basu, News Services |
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The
Northern California chapter of the American Liver Foundation will honor
Nancy Ascher, MD, PhD, chair of the UCSF department of surgery in its
"Salute to Excellence 2000" event Saturday, March 4, 7 p.m.,
at the Westin St. Francis Hotel.