Episode 25: Behind the Paper: Transplant Surgery: Sustaining a Workforce at a Critical Juncture | Dimitrios Morris

In this Behind the Paper episode, Macey Levan, Social Media Editor for the *Transplantation* journals, interviews Dimitrios Morris, MD about the key insights from:

📄 **Transplant Surgery: Sustaining a Workforce at a Critical Juncture** Commentary Published in *Transplantation* (July 2026)

This commentary examines the growing challenges facing the transplant surgery workforce at a time when the field continues to evolve through innovation, increasing clinical complexity, and expanding expectations. The conversation explores why workforce sustainability is not only a matter of surgeon well-being, but also essential to maintaining organ utilization, equity, and public trust.

The episode highlights:

🔹 Why transplant surgery is facing declining interest among general surgery residents 🔹 How unpredictable schedules and high-acuity care contribute to workforce strain 🔹 Why fellowship training must better reflect the realities of modern transplant practice 🔹 How academic promotion pathways can better recognize transplant surgeons’ contributions 🔹 The importance of clinical excellence, applied scholarship, and systems leadership 🔹 Why attracting ambitious, idealistic, and resilient future leaders is critical to the field’s future

Dr. Morris emphasizes that sustaining the transplant surgery workforce will require structural reform, not simply individual resilience. The discussion also highlights reasons for optimism, including continued innovation in machine perfusion, expanding surgical techniques, and the field’s growing ability to treat more complex disease processes.

📖 Read the full article: https://journals.lww.com/transplantjournal/fulltext/2026/07000/transplant_surgery__sustaining_a_workforce_at_a.5.aspx