Individuals who have received organ transplants will perform a transplant of a different kind on Earth Day, April 22.
They have been invited to transplant a small group of bald cypress trees to create a living monument to the 5,000 lives touched by transplant at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics over the past half century.
The 1 p.m. April 22 event will begin at the Eckstein Medical Research Building Atrium and assemble on the green just north of Boyd Tower. The ceremony is also free and open to the public and members of the media.
Recipients of each type of transplant have been invited to take part in the planting and to say a few words about what transplantation has meant to them. Because the UI Organ Transplant Center performs transplants for patients of the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Hospital, one of the invited participants is a Washington, D.C., resident and Marine Corps veteran, who received a kidney and pancreas transplant from the university in May of 2014.
This spring the UI Organ Transplant Center launched a year of special observances on the theme “Transplants Transform Lives.”
In March, the center performed its 5,000th solid organ transplant, a milestone in the state. UI Hospitals and Clinics and UI Children’s Hospital make up the state’s only comprehensive transplant center, performing transplants for adult and pediatric kidney, liver, pancreas, and heart cases, and adult lung cases. Its first transplant—a kidney—was done in 1969.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this ceremony, contact Tom Moore in advance at 319-356-3945.