In addition to clinical training, fellows participate in a variety of education experiences to further their education and exposure to transplant surgery. 

Additional training opportunities

Fellows participate in a variety of educational experiences including our weekly Transplant Issues Conference including invited leaders in transplant medicine and surgery.

The Organ Transplant Center also directs the multidisciplinary hepatobiliary tumor board which meets weekly to develop plans for patients with primary and metastatic malignancy.

Additional training opportunities are available in the following areas.

• Transplant immunology
• Transplant infectious disease
• Pediatric transplantation

Conference and teaching program

Abdominal organ transplant surgical fellows actively participate in numerous weekly conferences including the following.

• Transplant Issues Conference
• A multidisciplinary weekly meeting, including invited speakers examining the key issues facing transplantation
• Transplant quality review
• Journal club

In addition, there are weekly kidney and liver evaluation meetings, multidisciplinary hepatobiliary conference, and team rounds.

Fellows also join the Department of Surgery grand rounds and morbidity/mortality conference. Finally, the fellows have dedicated teaching hours weekly with Organ Transplant Center staff physicians and complete the ASTS Academic Universe curriculum.

Fellows complete required ASTS required in-service examinations. The fellow will be certified in FLS prior to graduation.

Abdominal multi-organ transplantation fellows are responsible for all aspects of inpatient care of patients on the transplant and hepatobiliary service.

Our fellows work with residents, medical students, and physician extenders to cover patients in the intensive care unit and transplant ward. Fellows participate in all transplant procedures, multiorgan recoveries, and living donor procedures.

The fellows have 1-2 days of clinic weekly in which they evaluate pre-transplant candidates and manage post-transplant complications. Fellows also assess hospitalized patients with decompensated organ failure and patients with complex surgical conditions. Duties include the care of adult and pediatric transplant recipients.   

Alan Reed, MD, MBA, professor and chief of the division of transplant and hepatobiliary surgery, serves on the American Society of Transplant Surgeons leadership counsel and was former chair of the Membership and Professional Standards Committee for UNOS

David Axelrod, MD, MBA, FACS, clinical professor of surgery and surgical director of kidney/pancreas and living donor transplant, is the Chair of the ASTS Standards committee, former chair of the Business Practice Committee and creator of the Leadership Development Program. He is an editor for AJT, Current Transplantation Reports, and previously for Liver Transplantation. He has NIH funding for health services research in transplantation and has worked with industry to improve post-transplant monitoring. 

The Organ Transplant Center at the University of Iowa has active research programs in kidney transplant, transplant health services research, transplant economics, and transplant immunology.

Fellows are encouraged to participate in clinical research projects and expected to prepare at least one clinical or review manuscript prior to graduation.

Fellows seeking a dedicated laboratory experience can be accommodated with an additional year of training. 

Major areas of research

• Health services research
• Transplant economics
• Transplant immunology 
• Genetic determinants of renal disease and risk of recurrence
• Cholangiocarcinoma and other primary hepatic malignancies

All clinical rotations are conducted at the main University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics and the attached University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

The transplant service includes recent transplant recipients, post-operative hepatobiliary surgery patients, and patients with complex liver conditions.

The service works collaboratively with the transplant medicine service which cares for waitlisted patients and transplant recipients without surgical issues. 

The first year of the fellowship is dedicated to learning kidney transplantation and the second year to living donor nephrectomy; however, fellows participate in transplantation of all organs during both years. 

Abdominal multi-organ transplantation fellows are directly supervised by one of four full-time transplant surgical faculty and work collaboratively with medicine faculty and fellows.

Overnight and on weekends primary call for transplant patients is covered by night float residents. Fellows are “on service” two weeks per month during which time they direct daily rounds and supervise residents and medical students. No in-house call is required, although fellows are expected to be available to night float surgical residents for questions. On non-service weeks, fellows alternate organ donor recovery call with surgical residents and are guaranteed one weekend per month free of all clinical responsibilities. 

Senior Fellow

Sung Hoon Kim, MD, PhD
Catholic Kwandong University College of Medicine, Gangneung, South Korea

Junior Fellow

Shengliang He, MD
Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

• Smita Pancholia, MBBS, MS - Fellow, Virginia Commonweath University
• Abhinav Seth, MBBS – General Surgery Residency, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
• Priyadarshini Manay, MBBS, MS - Surgical Medical Director, Iowa Donor Network
• Ahmed Alkaram, MBBS, PhD - Salem VA Medical Center
• Aaron Kaviani, MD - Indiana University
• Aamir Khan, MBBS - VCU Medical Center- Transplant Surgery
• Prashant Khullar, MD - Surgical Critical Care and Transplant Surgery, St. Elizabeth Healthcare, Kentucky
• Rajesh Shetty, MBBS - Consultant Emergency Surgeon, The Great Western Hospital, United Kingdom
• Chiranjeevi Siddagunta, MBBS - Community Health Care, INC, Family Medicine, Davenport
• Oleg Slivca, MD - University of Minnesota
• Kunal Yadav, MBBS - University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center