<\/p>\n
Frank Rosinski waited nine months for the phone call that came at 7 p.m. on April 27 from the University of Rochester<\/a>\u2019s Strong Memorial Hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ninety minutes later, the Greece resident arrived at the hospital, and the following day received the heart transplant that has given him a new lease on life.<\/p>\n Rosinski, 69, says he had no trepidations about entering the hospital in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was my first and perhaps only opportunity,\u201d he says. \u201cI had been waiting a long time for this.\u201d His only thought: \u201cLet\u2019s go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n The retired Canandaigua City School District administrator spoke this week from home, where he\u2019s recovering well and looking forward to resuming the outdoor activities he had to forgo the last two years.<\/p>\n Though most elective surgeries were suspended at Strong Memorial Hospital nine weeks ago because of the pandemic, surgeons there have performed a number of organ transplant procedures\u201417 liver, 8 kidney, and 3 heart\u2014during that time. The numbers included a milestone 1,800th liver transplant since the hospital began doing the procedure in 1992. <\/p>\n \u201cPatients who are on waiting lists for organ donations don\u2019t have the luxury of time,\u201d says Sunil Prasad<\/a>, chief of cardiac surgery at Strong. \u201cThey have only a certain amount of time before their organs fail to the point of no return.\u201d <\/p>\n The social distancing that has succeeded in slowing the spread of the disease\u2014and helped prevent Strong from being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients\u2014has further increased the time before the disease will run its course, says Prasad, the Dr. Jude S. Sauer Family Distinguished Professorship in Cardiac Surgery. That success has reinforced the need to continue transplants for the sickest patients <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/2020_rosinsk_6040.jpg\")
A milestone amid a pandemic<\/h2>\n