The Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute
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ASTS-Approved Multiorgan Transplantation FellowshipRMTI HistoryThe Mount Sinai Hospital reaffirmed its commitment to organ transplantation in 1998 with the establishment of the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute (RMTI). Named for businessman and philanthropist Raphael Recanati (who received a liver transplant at Mount Sinai in 1996) and for Mount Sinai surgeon Charles M. Miller, the RMTI is a comprehensive program for adults and children with end-stage organ disease, related cancers, and other disorders. Dedicated to providing compassionate care of the highest quality, the RMTI team comprises world-renowned physicians and surgeons in a wide variety of organ transplant and medical specialties. Expert integration of multidisciplinary medical services is one of the major principles on which the RMTI has been built. Working hand in hand with nurses, social workers, and support staff, RMTI physicians, surgeons and scientists coordinate the complex treatments that characterize a patient's course both before transplantation and afterward. The RMTI focuses on three areas — patient care, research, and education. Its three clinical divisions — liver/intestine, kidney/pancreas, lung/heart (heart will join the RMTI in the future) — draw upon Mount Sinai's long tradition of excellence. Well before organ transplants were possible, Mount Sinai's reputation for medical care and research drew patients with kidney disease, liver and other gastrointestinal diseases, and heart and lung diseases from around the world. In 1967, Mount Sinai opened one of the region's first kidney transplant programs. Today, RMTI surgeons are among the few in the country who perform laparoscopic nephrectomies on living kidney donors, a procedure which dramatically reduces recovery time for individuals who donate a kidney to a loved one. In 1988, Mount Sinai surgeons performed New York State's first liver transplant. Since then, more than 1,500 patients have received new livers at Mount Sinai. This program is now the second largest in the world. The first heart transplant at Mount Sinai was performed in 1986, the first lung transplant in 1992, and the first pancreas transplant in 1994. In keeping with their mission to offer the most innovative surgical techniques, RMTI surgeons also became the first in New York State to perform isolated intestinal and multivisceral transplantation, beginning in 1998. Associated with liver transplantation at Mount Sinai has been the growth of an outstanding program of hepatobiliary surgery for liver and bile duct tumors. This program is a clinical component of the RMTI, providing state-of-the-art care for patients with liver disease who may best be served through surgical techniques other than transplant. The mission of the RMTI also includes research and education. RMTI researchers are working, independently and in major collaborations, to improve organ preservation, reduce rejection, minimize postsurgical complications and the side effects of immunosuppression, and prevent recurrence of disease. In addition, partnerships between the RMTI and Mount Sinai's leading immunologists and geneticists are expected to yield important new approaches to treatment. In 1999, the Transplant Research Center, a major research facility, was established at The Mount Sinai Hospital in order to advance basic research in transplantation science and to integrate these advances into clinical programs. RMTI educational initiatives include a highly acclaimed multiorgan transplant fellowship program, conferences for community physicians and other health care professionals, and critically important public education activities to increase organ donation.
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