A 32-year-old nursing student received a dual-organ transplant thanks to her more than 250-person team at Rochester, N.Y.-based Strong Memorial Hospital.
Ashley Cuylear received a heart and kidney transplant after more than 14 hours of surgeries and a decade of illness, University of Rochester Medical Center said in an April 9 news release. Clinical and support staff from nearly 20 departments aided in the dual-organ transplant.
"A dual-organ transplant requires tremendous coordination and communication between the two transplant teams – heart and kidney in this case. We started working on this as soon as Ashley was added to the waiting list for the heart transplant," Karen Pineda-Solis, MD, kidney transplant surgeon, said in the release. "It stretches our teams all across the center."
Strong Memorial Hospital is the only center in Upstate New York to provide heart and liver transplantation, among other dual-organ transplants, according to the release.