UR Medicine Reaches 400 Heart Transplants Since 2001 As Rochester Patient Returns Home After Life Saving Surgery

UR Medicine Marks 400th heart transplant As Recipient Shane Pitts Returns Home

USA: The 48-year-old Shane Pitts is two weeks removed from a heart transplant at UR Medicine and has returned to his Rochester home, grateful for a second chance. Pitts, a father of five, first experienced collapse on a basketball court in 2020 and later received an ICD before his condition deteriorated and ultimately required transplantation. He was admitted to the cardiac ICU in early February and waited for a suitable donor heart.

The operation represents the 400th heart transplant performed by UR Medicine since the program launched in 2001, a milestone hospital leaders say reflects 25 years of program growth and adoption of advanced cardiac technologies. Clinicians credited institutional leadership and new tools that made this complex transplantation possible for increasingly high-risk patients.

Care teams described the emotional balance of transplantation work: intensive clinical coordination from organ procurement through surgery and rehabilitation, alongside support for donor families who, while grieving, find solace in giving another person life. The case underscores the network’s emergence as a national leader in cardiac care and its ability to mobilize resources quickly for urgent transplants.

Two weeks after surgery Pitts reported feeling better than he had in years and expressed deep gratitude toward the donor and hospital staff. He encouraged others to consider registering as organ donors; New Yorkers can join the state’s organ donor registry through the official registration process.

Video originally published on 2026-06-04 16:17:29