VCU news

By Leila Ugincius and Polina Wells

Virginia Commonwealth University presents Velma Scantlebury, M.D., America’s first black female transplant surgeon, at a lecture and roundtable discussion hosted by the Black Education Association.

The lecture, “Health Equity in Kidney Transplantation: Experiences from a Surgeon's Perspective,” takes place Thursday, Feb. 11, 3–4 p.m. at the University Student Commons Theater, followed by a reception.

Earlier in the day, Scantlebury will participate in a roundtable discussion, “Current Issues in Organ Transplantation,” from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., in room 1013 of the Molecular Medicine Research Building, 1220 E. Broad St., on the MCV Campus. She will be joined by Wally Smith, M.D., Florence Neal Cooper Smith Professor of Sickle Cell Disease, VCU School of Medicine; Gaurav Gupta, M.D., program director, transplant nephrology fellowship at VCU; and David Klassen, M.D., chief medical officer, United Network for Organ Sharing.

Scantlebury is associate director of the Kidney Transplant Program at Christiana Care Health System in Delaware. Early in her career, she committed to increasing the number of kidney transplants and educating black Americans on donating organs and tissues for transplant surgeries.

By 2007, Scantlebury had performed more than 1,000 transplant surgeries in adults and children. She has been named one of America’s Best Doctors twice and has co-authored more than 100 research publications.