Live From Surgery - A Program Where Students Virtually Interact with Doctors

Steve Adubato goes on-location to the NJ Sharing Network's 30th Anniversary Gala to speak with Dr. Stuart Geffner, Director of Transplant Surgery at RWJBarnabas Health. Dr. Geffner participated in the "Live from Surgery" program at Liberty Science Center, an interactive experience where students can watch a live kidney transplant and communicate virtually with doctors.

3/19/18 #2120

Excerpt:

"We're with one of the... he won't accept it, but he's one of the stars here tonight at the annual gala of the New Jersey Sharing Network, celebrating 30 years of this organization. He's Doctor Stuart Geffner, Director of Transplant Surgery, RWJBarnabas Health. What does tonight mean to you? It's a big celebration, right Stuart? Absolutely. It's very special. It's a fantastic organization. I'm just happy that I could have been a part of this for over 20 years now, really, trying to save lives and improve lives. It's been tremendously meaningful for me and my career. One of the reasons I mentioned or referred to Doctor Geffner as one of the stars is he's been involved in an initiative that comes right out of this location. We're at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey. It's an extraordinary initiative simply called Live From Surgery, going into its 14th year. Tell folks what it is doctor. So this is really a special special program. During the school year, about fifteen or sixteen times a year, a group of high school students, usually honors science students, will come to the Science Center, in a special theater in the Science Center, and they will view, in live real time, a living donor kidney transplant. And over the course of two hours, they see us remove the kidney from the living donor with laparoscopic or minimally invasive surgery, they see us prepare the kidney on what we call the back table, and then they see us implant the kidney into the recipient. It's an absolutely spectacular program for the Science Center, for the Sharing Network, for from my program, we all partner in this together. What makes it so special is that it is completely live and completely interactive. Whatever happens happens? The kids see what I see. we have cameras in the operating room, they're looking at the same laparoscopic feed that I'm looking at. They have microphones where they can ask questions. I hear them. I have a microphone on hand. No no, Stuart, hold on. During the surgery? Yes. Absolutely. During the surgery. So it's a great great program, and really, what's been special for me about it is it really has given us the opportunity to educate literally thousands of kids, and we've done this internationally as well, about the need for organ and tissue donation in this country, about the miracle of transplantation, about important take-home messages about healthy lifestyle to prevent high blood pressure and diabetes and heart disease and kidney disease, and about hopefully, potentially influencing the next..."