Dr. Vicky Gerovasili

Like Dr. Budev said, it is a life-transforming, life-changing experience, but it's an uphill road to get there.

And it is a lot of work after the surgery itself, not only to recover from it, but to maintain the health of the lungs.

The journey starts when a patient with end-stage lung disease or when their lungs are failing because of respiratory condition gets referred to a transplant center.

And it's a lot of work to work them up and make sure they are well enough and strong enough to withstand the big assault that the transplant operation is on the body itself.

The first great moment of that is when you actually can say to someone you're well enough and you need a transplant, but you are well enough also to go on a transplant waiting list.

But lungs don't grow on trees.

So for those patients waiting for a lung transplant, it's like being diagnosed.

on the waiting room, waiting for an operation every single minute of that waiting time, which can be days, weeks, or months.

So it's a very stressful time for the patient primarily, but for the whole team looking after them as they are deteriorating, waiting for an organ to become available.

And it's the biggest gift that someone can ever give.

So allow me to take a minute to encourage everyone who might be listening in to become donors, to express their wish, because it's such a life-transforming experience for those patients.

So when a lung becomes available, that can be any time of the day or night, and then the patient will be called into the hospital, the lungs will be retrieved from the donor hospital, and there are different processes in different countries around the world.

Certainly different ways it's done in the US and in the UK and slightly different in Europe and other places.

But the end result of it is...

If the lung is suitable, then the transplant surgeon takes over from the physicians and does what can be a very lengthy operation.

And then the next part of the journey begins.

During the actual surgery itself, we don't do much.

It's probably the part of this very long patient journey, which can start years before having, or months before having a lung transplant, and hopefully last for years after the transplant, that we don't get very heavily involved in.

Our role as a medical team during the operation is to, one, support the decision-making around matching the right recipient with the right donor, and there's a lot of nuisance into that.

tailoring the immunosuppressive regime that needs to start right the minute someone goes into theatre, tailor the antibiotic and the rest of the regimen that needs to support the recovery from surgery.