Transplant pioneer brings skills to
USA:
Dr. Barry Browne helped build program at Temple University
By J.C. ZOGHBY, Staff Reporter, Mobile Register, Apr. 8,
1998.
Section B1, B4
Dr. Barry J. Browne, a young pioneer who helped
build a transplant program
at Temple University, will bring his skills to the University of South
Alabama's fledgling kidney-transplant program this summer.
Browne will take over a local program that has
had plenty of potential
patients but little direction since it started in 1996.
That summer, USA officials were excited about
bringing transplantation to
the area, saving patients from having to go to Birmingham or New Orleans for
such procedures. They hired Dr. Ferdinand Ukah, a transplant surgeon, as
director, and brought in a team of doctors and nurses for the organ program.
Ukah led the new group through mock surgeries before the first kidney
operation that summer.
Then, in October, during a trip to his native Nigeria, Ukah died
in a car
accident. The loss of the 39-year-old father of four left his family and
university officials stunned.
Dr. Arnold Luterman, chairman of the department
of surgery,
said he needed a top-notch candidate to fill Ukah's shoes.
It was a question of getting the right guy rather
than just
getting the job filled,'' Luterman said.
Browne had applied for the job when the program
started but was turned down
because USA officials believed he had too little experience. At that time,
he
was finishing a fellowship in immunology and transplantation at the University
of Texas Medical School in Houston.
He moved to Temple in September 1995 and began
converting the school's
part-time transplant program into a full-time force in a competitive market.
Temple is one of seven transplantation programs in the Philadelphia area,
Browne said, and it had to compete fiercely for patients and organs in the
crowded market.
While he worked to build up the hospital's kidney
and liver programs,
Browne heard that USA was looking for a new director. He wrote Luterman a
letter.
Luterman took another look at the now-seasoned
Browne.
There are still a lot of things that I wanted
to be done here, and I
didn't want somebody who would become easily frustrated,'' said Luterman.
Browne, whose button-down shirts don't match
his down-to-earth manner, said
he was looking forward to moving to a market in which he could perform
transplants without such stiff competition. Since hospitals see transplant
departments as a marks of full-service hospitals, they often use the
operations as marketing tools to win insurance contracts in markets such as
Philadelphia, he said.
Quality, not competition, is what guides the
transplant centers scattered
throughout the South, he said.
The father of two said he likes transplantation
because it can make people
feel dramatically better.
I can't think of a better way to have fun than
making other people really
happy,'' he said.
All along, USA officials have argued that Mobile
needs a transplant center
of its own for better patient care and convenience.
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing,
the national
accreditation body for transplant program, 38,956 people are waiting for
kidney transplants and 10,180 are waiting for new livers. USA estimates that
the list includes about 200 people in southern Alabama.
PHOTO G.M. ANDREWS /Staff Photographer Dr.
Barry Browne is ready for
the challenge of heading the University of South Alabama's
fledgling
kidney-transplant program.
This article reproduced with special permission
from the Mobile Register.
