Supporting Their Health System's Transplant Program

Allegheny General Hospital, which is the flagship hospital within the Allegheny Health Network (AHN), has a storied history within surgery, especially as it relates to heart procedures.

One of its physicians, George Magovern, MD, was a pioneer in surgical techniques including open-heart procedures. Magovern partnered with Edward Kent, MD, a nationally recognized chest surgeon, introduced to the area the very first open heart procedures using the heart-lung machine.¹

A sculpture of George Magovern, MD.

Magovern also partnered with a local engineer, Harry Cromie, to develop a revolutionary sutureless prosthetic aortic valve designed to shorten operative times and improve patient outcomes. This led to greater survival rates for these procedures.¹ In 1963, Magovern performed the world’s second left single lung transplant in a man dying of emphysema.¹ Today, AHN continues to offer an array of different transplants including heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, stem cell/CAR T-cell transplants and left ventricular assist device procedures.

Deeksha Jandhyala, MD, infectious diseases specialist with the AHN Medicine Institute, and medical director of transplant infectious diseases at Allegheny General Hospital, notes the transplant department just recently reached a milestone of performing its 500^th heart transplant.

Behind the scenes there is much to consider before transplant candidates are approved for such procedures. One of these significant steps is when Jandhyala and her team screen them for infections. They support their transplant program by seeing transplant candidates through the surgical cycle. They treat a broad array of diseases caused by microorganisms and managing infectious diseases in pre- and post-transplant patients.

“Most all of our transplant candidates come to this transplant ID clinic to get their regular, routine infectious disease screening,” Jandhyala said. “We screen for latent infections. We try to capture these patients in the outpatient setting before their transplant so that we can mitigate their infectious risk. We also follow them on the post-transplant side, and if they are getting active treatment for their infection.”

She mentors trainees and junior faculty members, and oversees protocols that go into their solid organ transplant guidelines. Her team works closely with other medical teams.

“We have a really close collaborative relationship with our transplant surgical teams,” Jandhyala said. “We sit in on multidisciplinary rounds...We help them design a treatment plan.”

In the next episode, Thomas Walsh, MD, discusses AHN's approach to antibiotic stewardship.

Reference
1. History. AHN. Accessed August 20, 2025.
https://www.ahn.org/locations/hospitals/allegheny-general/patients-visitors/magovern-conference-center/history