Gentlemen start your engines

[YLGuy]

Marc, just incase this doesn't pan out due to the "emotional atttachment" and only accept X amount of patients, do you have a back up plan? Such as another center to look at with acceptable results.

There are other good hospitals in the area and I am close enough to the San Diego area to list there.

[paris]

Good luck as you go through this process.      

[cariad]

I remember USC having worse numbers but their explanation was that they tried to help patients who couldn't get help anywhere else (particularly with liver transplants.) Ultimately that got them into trouble with UNOS because a higher number of patients died (again - liver patients) which cast a pall on their transplant reputation for a while. I think that's why many centers now only accept the healthiest of the healthy patients for transplant so as to increase the odds of success. I do not know if that's the case at SJ.

That is an especially lame explanation from USC. Another hospital I am familiar with - Madison - tried this same excuse. The stats are controlled for extra risk, which is why you have the percentage that would be statistically expected to survive given the transplants performed against the number that actually survived. While stats are an imperfect measure, I went to USC despite their liver transplant fiasco, and they were horrible: incompetent, disorganized, slooooow, and just plain rude.

My thinking was that they would treat me especially carefully since they theoretically were trying to rebuild their reputation. The exact opposite turned out to be true. I am the healthiest of the healthy, not to mention I have the financial resources, (relative) youth, the history that demonstrate how well I tolerate this procedure, and most attractive of all, the live donor. If they were too stupid to treat me with care and respect, I shudder to think how they treat the older, disadvantaged, inner city individuals that supposedly make up a large portion of their patients. I would avoid USC at all costs.

I am also unimpressed with UCLA, but never was evaluated there so do not have the personal experience to that extent. Cedars was great - if it comes to that, Marc, I would try Cedars or Scripps since Karol had a good experience there. I would avoid UC-Irvine. Horrible scandal there, and from my USC experience, hospitals that have been scandalized earn every drop of scorn they receive.

Good luck, Marc! It sounds like things went well at the orientation, and I have little doubt that you will be among the 20% that get on the list at your current center.

[YLGuy]

Thank you so much! Great information.