Event In Honor Of National Organ And Tissue Donation Awareness Month

New York City, NY (April 15, 2005) -- Montefiore Medical Center and The New York Organ Donor Network are inviting the public to attend a “Gift of Life Program” on Wednesday, April 27, 2005, to increase awareness and promote organ and tissue donation.  The event will be held in Montefiore’s Cherkasky Auditorium, located at East Gun Hill Road and Rochambeau Avenue in the Bronx, from 10:30AM—1:00PM.

 Montefiore will receive an award from The Organ Donor Network for being one of the top 300 programs in the United States to achieve above average transplant goals. 

The medical center’s new Chairman of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Robert Michler, MD, will discuss Montefiore’s newly-expanded heart transplant program and Vivian Tellis, MD, chief of kidney transplant surgery, will speak about issues surrounding organ donation.

“An average of 106 people are added to the nation’s organ transplant waiting list each day -- that’s one person every 14 minutes,” said Dr. Tellis, who has been at the forefront of increasing organ donation for several decades.  “Our mission is to create a culture in which organ and tissue donation is a priority.”

More than 87,000 people are on the nation's organ transplant waiting list and about ten percent of them are in New York State.  On average, 17 patients die every day while awaiting an organ transplant.