Manuel E. Gonzalez, M.D., & Nasir Khan, M.D., Join UAMS Kidney Transplant Team

By ChaseYavondaC

UAMS is the only center in Arkansas that offers adult liver and kidney transplantation.

Advances in medicine and programs that encourage more people to consider becoming kidney donors have made these life-saving transplants more widely available. Transplants remain the best treatment for end-stage renal disease.

“We are really excited to be able to hire two outstanding transplant nephrologists to the transplant program here in Arkansas for the growing program in the state,” said Lyle Burdine, M.D., Ph.D., transplant surgeon and director of the Solid Organ Transplant Program at UAMS.

Gonzalez joins the Department of Internal Medicine as an assistant professor in the Division of Nephrology. He received his medical degree from the Universidad Evangelica de El Salvador School of Medicine. He completed a rotary internship in general medicine specialties at the Zacamil National Hospital in San Salvador, El Salvador. He furthered his training with a residency and fellowship in nephrology and fellowship in transplant nephrology at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans.

Gonzalez is fluent in Spanish and one of his goals is to expand awareness, education and outreach about treatments for kidney failure among the Spanish-speaking community statewide. Gonzalez will join Burdine in providing a twice-monthly transplant clinic at the UAMS Northwest Arkansas Regional Campus so patients do not have to travel to Little Rock for care.

“I will be emphasizing education and awareness about kidney disease in Arkansas, particularly because today there are so many more options than just dialysis,” Gonzalez said.

Khan agreed, saying “We have decades of evidence that shows people who donate a kidney go on to live healthy, flourishing lives and do not put themselves at greater risk of death or illness compared to the general population.”

Expanding the living donor program will be a focus for Khan, who joins UAMS as an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Nephrology. He received his medical degree in Pakistan and then worked in emergency medicine in Queensland, Australia. His completed his internal medicine residency at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey. He then went on to complete his fellowship in nephrology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and transplant nephrology at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,275 students, 890 medical residents and fellows, and five dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 12,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.

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