With the addition of a new transplant surgeon, the University of Mississippi Medical Center will begin offering liver transplants in the next year.
Dr. Chris Anderson, who specializes in adult and pediatric liver and kidney transplants, has joined UMMC and will see patients through University of Mississippi Health Care.
Anderson, a Lucedale native who previously worked at Washington University in St. Louis, currently leads the kidney transplant program. He said it will likely take six months to a year for the liver program to begin because key staff members need to be recruited to the team.
Anderson has no doubt that the program will succeed.
"I didn't come here just to come home. The institution is committed to this growth from top to bottom. There's support here to make this happen. Our goal is that no one should leave the state to get excellent transplant care," he said.
A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, Anderson earned the M.D. at Emory University in Atlanta. He completed residency training in general surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he also completed a fellowship in hepatobiliary surgical research.
Anderson was a fellow in abdominal transplant surgery from 2006-2008 at Washington University. He served as a staff surgeon in Missouri at Barnes Jewish Hospital, Barnes Jewish West County Hospital and Saint Louis Children's Hospital.
Anderson's immediate goal is to improve the kidney transplant program by promoting laparoscopic kidney surgery for living donor transplants.
"My personal goal is that if a physician in the state of Mississippi has a patient who needs a liver or kidney transplant, or has a liver tumor or bile duct problem, that they will know me and our program. Their patients should not have to leave the state to receive the most excellent transplant and hepatobiliary care. It is our mission and our responsibility to provide comprehensive transplant care to patients who need it," he said.
Anderson's research interest is in fatty liver disease and how it impacts transplantation in donors and recipients. His research focus is driven, in part, by an increase in obesity and metabolic diseases nationally. Obesity-related illnesses may lead to liver diseases.
"It will likely become a leading indication for liver transplant," Anderson said. He hopes to collaborate with researchers in the UMMC Obesity, Metabolism & Nutrition Center.