Doctors in the Program in Heart Failure and Transplantation program at Strong Hospital gathered Tuesday to announce they recently performed their 200th heart transplant surgery.
The patient, 48 year old Stephen Waite of Oswego, continues to recover.
"I feel like a new man, and I got a second chance at life, and I want to thank all these wonderful people for helping me out," he said.
Transplant surgeon Dr. Sunil Prasad, says this landmark procedure reflects well on all the capabilities that they have at Strong Hospital.
"We're the only transplant center outside of New York City, and so our breadth that we cover is all of Western New York and Upstate New York, so all the way from Buffalo to Watertown and almost all the way down to Cooperstown," he said.
Director of the transplant program, Dr. Leway Chen, says this milestone couldn't have been reached without the generosity of donors.
But New York has a severe shortage of organ donors in its registry.
"We still rank 50th out of 51 for being registered for organ donation. So we want this opportunity to get the word out that organ donation is important," he said.
Dr. Chen says soon people will be able to register online to donate their organs, which should make it much easier.
He says unfortunately, many people die on the organ waiting list.
Currently 28 patients are on Strong's heart transplant waiting list.
Here’s Dr. Eugene Storozynsky and his patient, Stephen Waite: