Paul Brand, combination heart and kidney transplant patient

In the summer of 2006, Paul Brand made history. The 63-year-old man from Tuckahoe became the first Hudson Valley resident to have a combination heart and kidney transplant in one hospital visit.

Prior to this, Paul Brand was slowly dying. His heart had been deteriorating since he was a child. He had already had one valve replaced and he was living with the aid of both a pacemaker and defibrillator. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the stress was causing his kidneys to fail. He would soon need dialysis. His cardiologist “was keeping me alive with drugs and dietary restrictions,” recalls Brand. He desperately needed transplant surgery.

“There’s less chance of rejection by the body if we do both organs together,” says David Spielvogel, M.D., cardiothoracic surgeon and Director of Heart Transplantation at Westchester Medical Center. As notice came down that donor organs were ready, Westchester surgeons and staff coordinated a procedure that would span different rooms, different departments and, in fact, different states.

Timing is everything, as an organ can only last so long outside the body. In June 2006, Westchester surgeon Ramim Malekan, M.D., removed Paul’s new heart from the donor’s body and prepared to fly it back to Westchester. Just three hours later, Dr. Spielvogel placed it in Paul’s chest. The surgery was a success.

Soon after, Paul’s kidney arrived from the donor hospital. Paul is prepped for his second operation and Rafik El-Sabrout, M.D., Associate Director of the Medical Center’s Transplant Program, finishes the kidney transplant later that same day.

In the span of a day and a half, Paul Brand received a new heart, a new kidney and a new lease on life. When he woke up, he remembered hearing an odd sound. “I heard a strange, steady, beating sound,” he remembers. “It was my new heart.”

“My body is pinkish now where it was white before,” he says. “People ask me, ‘ Were you in Florida?” I say, ‘No, I just got my heart pumping again.’

Learn more about the Transplant Center at Westchester Medical Center.