Effective March 20, the Lee Health kidney transplant program reopened as the Lee Health Transplant Institute at Gulf Coast Medical Center. The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) approved Lee Heath’s reactivation of its kidney transplant program on March 1. The transplant team will perform kidney transplants from deceased donors at this time and Lee Health is committed to reopening the living donor program at a later date.
The transplant program has been comprehensively restructured from community-based to health system-based to provide the highest level of quality care and safety to patients. The new structure meets national transplant standards, and Lee Health has established new guidelines for evaluation and selection criteria of candidates.
Lynsey Biondi, M.D., program director and fellowship trained kidney transplant surgeon, leads the Transplant Institute. Dr. Biondi is joined by fellowship trained kidney transplant surgeon Jacfranz Guiteau, M.D., and fellowship trained transplant nephrologists Gautham Mogilishetty, M.D., and Shalini Saith, M.D. An administrative team, anesthesiologists, intensive care units, surgical progressive care units and other departments support the newly designed kidney transplant program.
