GROUNDBREAKING

Northwestern Surgeons Perform Kidney Transplant on ‘Awake’ Patient

“Grading on the curve that I was having surgery, it was pretty easy,” 28-year-old John Nicholas said after the procedure.

A group of surgeons at Northwestern Medicine performed a kidney transplant last month without general anesthesia—allowing the patient to be “awake” during the procedure. The groundbreaking surgery was performed by Dr. Satish Nadig, director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center, as well as transplant surgeon Dr. Vinayak Rohan and anesthesiologist Dr. Vicente Garcia Tomas, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Using a spinal anesthetic similar to those used in C-section deliveries allowed Chicago native John Nicholas, 28, to leave the hospital within a day of the procedure. Doctors believe he’ll also recover faster, without the use of prescription narcotics. “Grading on the curve that I was having surgery, it was pretty easy,” Nicholas told the Sun-Times. “It was very powerful.” Nicholas suffered for years with Crohn’s disease, which left him with inflamed and damaged kidneys. Following the surgery, he said he’s been able to eat more freely and even rode a bike just weeks after going under the knife. The Northwestern team plans to establish a program to promote the use of similar strategies for transplant patients—one they want to call the AWAKE program, which stands for “Accelerated Surgery Without General Anesthesia in Kidney Transplantation.”