Lung-Transplant Director Discusses the Path to No. 1,000
On July 7, 2019, Dr. Michael Mulligan performed UW Medicine's 1,000th lung transplant.
"Our program has been a high-volume center for quite some time," said Mulligan, who oversees that service and is a professor of surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine. "When I came here in 1998 to look for a job, the one-year survival (for lung-transplant patients) was about 60%. ... Now it's more than 90%."
In some cases, the team uses ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), a machine that temporarily takes over lung function for people who are gravely ill but not yet matched to an organ donor. The mechanical support is used as a bridge to transplant in upward of 10% of UW Medicine's lung-transplant candidates, he said.
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Director, UW Medicine Lung Transplant Program
Michael Mulligan, M.D., is a board certified surgeon at UW Medical Center, director of the UW's Lung Transplant, Advanced Lung Disease Surgery and Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery Programs and the UW Medicine Distinguished Endowed Professor ...