Experts will review UCI transplant program

In wake of scandal, the chancellor will appoint a team to examine liver, other organ transplants.UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake has begun assembling a committee of experts to investigate transplant programs at the UCI Medical Center, following a scandal that broke last week.

Thursday, the medical center announced that it was halting its liver transplant program after the federal government had stripped the program of its certification. That morning, the Los Angeles Times ran a story about a recent report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which found that more than 30 people had died while on the waiting list for liver transplants at UCI and that the university had rejected many donated organs during that time.

Following the report, Drake issued a public statement outlining plans for an independent investigation, saying he would appoint a team of “internal and external” experts to review the liver and other transplant programs. According to spokeswoman Susan Menning, the chancellor had nearly decided on the members of the team by Monday afternoon.

“He’s in the process of putting a list together,” she said. “He’s got a preliminary list, and he’s just checking with people to make sure they’d like to be on it.”

Since July 2004, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the UCI Medical Center has not had a full-time liver transplant surgeon, relying instead on part-time surgeons from UC San Diego. From August 2004 to July of this year, the medical center received 122 offers for livers but transplanted only 12 -- two of them to the same patient, after the first operation failed.

With the liver transplant program now shut down, chief medical center officer Ralph Cygan said, patients on UCI’s waiting list would be transferred to other hospitals.

Drake and Cygan did not return calls for this story. Susan Mancia, spokeswoman for the UCI Medical Center, said the investigation team would likely be independent and that UCI employees would not take part in it.

Tom Vasich, UCI’s assistant director of health sciences communications, said officials at the medical center were doing their best to keep morale high.

“Pretty much everyone has determined to move forward and communicate with all our various constituencies about what we’re planning to do in the short-term future,” he said. “Obviously, we’re communicating with our patients to let them know about the closure of programs and efforts to find them new enrollment in other transplant programs in Southern California.”