We transplanted a patient this evening for a liver/kidney. She had a moderate MELD score and was not receiving any transplant offers, and unfortunately due to her smaller size, the few offers she did get were not ideal. Krista went above and beyond for this patient...as she does with all her patients. Under her own incentive, she found the MELD exception qualifications and used what she could to try and get this patient exception points to elevate her MELD score and improve the chances of her getting a viable organ offer. Through the last few months, Krista has been having the patient call her each time she had a paracentesis and thoracentesis and recorded each of the amounts there were drained. She then subsequently wrote and appealed narratives for BAS and BUMC in order to get her exception points (and I have yet to understand how she got the points, but she did), all without any of us knowing. She had approached me a few weeks ago asking if there was anything she could do for this patient, and I mentioned that if she found a living donor for kidney that perhaps that would open up some options for what type of liver we could select for her as frequently for the liver/kidney patients, what limits our ability to use organ offers is the quality of the kidney. She asked the patient to pursue this and she was able to find two living donors that came forward, and we were about to start trying to figure out the logistics of using an ABO incompatible donor in a potential swap. Ultimately, on the 7th appeal to plead the case for this patient, the patient was listed and received a transplant today - only 12 hours after Krista got her listed!

I'm not sure if the hepatologists are aware of the lengths that Krista goes to for her patients. It is beyond admirable. I end up hearing about it as we are transplanting her patients, and how she captured higher than normal MELD scores on them or wrote multiple narratives to get exception points. I only know this information because this patient raved about her in clinic when we saw her yesterday...and because I reviewed the living donor applications that were sent to me. She does all of this without expectation of recognition, purely to provide the best care for her patients. She is someone we always want on our patient’s side.