The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital has established an endowed distinguished chair in lung transplantation. The chair is created with an initiating gift from Mid-America Transplant, an organ procurement organization (OPO) dedicated to saving lives through organ and tissue donations throughout Missouri, Southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas.
The establishment of The G. Alexander Patterson, MD / Mid-America Transplant Endowed Distinguished Chair in Lung Transplantation marks the first time an OPO has provided a gift to initiate the formation of such an endowment.
From left, Dr. G. Alexander Patterson, Dr. Daniel Kreisel, Mid-America Transplant President and CEO Diane Brockmeier, and Barnes-Jewish Hospital President Bob Cannon.
Daniel Kreisel, MD, PhD, the surgical director of the lung transplant program at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University, was installed as the inaugural recipient on August 15. Funding from the chair will support Dr. Kreisel’s research in the immunology of lung transplantation and was made possible by the generosity and innovation of Mid-America Transplant.
“Honoring the decades-long partnership between Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Mid-America Transplant was motivation for our board of directors’ to make this unprecedented gift,” said Diane Brockmeier, president and CEO of Mid-America Transplant. “The board’s decision to make this gift ensures the advancement of innovative research in transplantation and we are honored to have our organization’s name linked to Dr. Alec Patterson’s in perpetuity.”
Brockmeier said ultimately the gift is in honor of the heroic and selfless gifts of organ and tissue donors.
“We believe the most important way we can do that is through intentional stewardship of those gifts,” she said. “Our decision to make the initiating gift for this endowed distinguished chair is simply an act of stewardship because we are ensuring that right here in our own community we have world class surgeons and physicians like Dr. Patterson and Dr. Kreisel working each day to save more lives.”
Bob Cannon, president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital, unveils the G. Alexander Patterson, MD/Mid-America Transplant Endowed Distinguished Chair in Lung Transplantation, which was bestowed on Daniel Kreisel, MD, PhD, professor of surgery and surgical director of the Lung Transplant Program at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
An Innovative Partnership
Endowed chairs, among of the highest honors bestowed upon the hospital’s physicians, give outstanding researchers and clinicians the ability to pursue groundbreaking work that helps them develop better treatments and technology. The Foundation currently stewards endowments that fund 28 chairs held by faculty at Washington University School of Medicine.
The gift from Mid-America Transplant was matched by the Department of Surgery and the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine, and represents an innovative collaboration between hospital, academic medical center and OPO.
“The synergy of this group of donors reflects a day-to-day collaboration that is the reason we have one of the leading programs in solid organ transplant in the world,” said Bob Cannon, president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital and group president of BJC HealthCare. “In fact, we are currently No. 4 in the nation for solid organ transplants. The hospital, the organ procurement organization and the surgeons work together every day to ensure our patients and their families have extraordinary experiences.”
The installation ceremony also honored Dr. Patterson for his enormous impact on the field of thoracic surgery including participating in the first-ever successful lung transplant and helping to build a pioneering lung transplant program at Barnes-Jewish. In addition to his outstanding surgical skills and clinical care, he has been a cherished teacher and mentor to generations of trainees, including Dr. Kreisel.
Named director of the Lung Center in 1991, Dr. Patterson’s pioneering work set the standard for thoracic surgical technique and advanced the field of transplantation, making the curriculum taught at Barnes-Jewish one of the world’s most distinguished lung transplant programs.
A Surgeon and a Scientist
Graduating from New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1995, Dr. Dan Kreisel trained in general surgery at The Hospital of The University of Pennsylvania and completed his residency in 2003. He earned a PhD in 2002 from The University of Pennsylvania and completed his training in cardiothoracic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
Prior to joining the faculty at Washington University as an assistant professor of surgery, pathology and immunology in 2006, he completed a visiting fellowship in thoracic oncology at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a fellowship in lung transplantation at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish.
He was promoted to associate professor of surgery, pathology and immunology with tenure in 2010 and then to professor of surgery, pathology and immunology with tenure in 2014. Also in 2014, he was named the surgical directorship of the lung transplant program at Barnes-Jewish and Washington University School of Medicine. In 2017, he was asked to serve as the scientific director of the Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center.
During his installation, Dr. Kreisel said he was extremely honored to hold a chair named after his mentor. He said Dr. Patterson gave him a fellowship position in the cardiothoracic surgical division, taught him lung transplantation and offered him a faculty position.
“You supported me and my academic career in every imaginable way, every step of the way,” Dr. Kreisel said. “Clearly I would not be standing here today without Alec’s mentorship.”
About Mid-America Transplant
Mid-America Transplant enables adults and children to receive lifesaving gifts through organ and tissue donations. For more than 40 years, it has facilitated and coordinated organ and tissue donation, and now serves 84 counties covering eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas that together are home to 4.7 million people. It saves lives by providing expert and compassionate care for organ and tissue donors, recipients and families, and transforms the clinical processes required to recover and transplant organs and tissues. Mid-America Transplant was the first such organization in the U.S. to use an in-house operating room for organ recovery and pioneered innovative models of increasing donor registry enrollment to provide more organs and tissues to those in need. It is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S., and is the first organ procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence and a three-time recipient of the Missouri Quality Award.
About The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital
The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital is 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to help donors enrich lives, save lives, and transform patient care through charitable gifts.
We proudly support the world-class health care organizations of St. Louis: Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital, Siteman Cancer Center, Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish College, BJC Home Care and Hospice, Evelyn’s House (hospice), and Washington University School of Medicine.