Dr. Robert Montgomery leads his first kidney transplant surgery since his own heart transplant.
Photo: NYU Langone Staff
Robert Montgomery, MD, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, became a patient of the program he leads in September 2018. He required a heart transplant because of a genetic form of heart disease, familial cardiomyopathy, and accepted a heart from a donor with hepatitis C.
Dr. Montgomery, also a professor in the , returned to the operating room (OR) on January 31 to perform his first kidney transplant as the lead surgeon since his transplant. His patient was also a heart transplant recipient who now needed a kidney transplant due to the effects of his immunosuppressant drug regimen.
Dr. Montgomery faced new challenges before returning to the OR, including starting a new drug regimen without the side effect that kept him from surgery, tremors. “The operating room is the place where I feel the most at home,†says Dr. Montgomery. “I fought really hard to become a surgeon and stay in the game, and it was really important that I overcome this.â€
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