The University of Louisville Health System is celebrating a record breaking number of living donors in one year.

In 2023, they had 26 successful kidney transplants.

A doctor who performed some of the transplants talked about these life saving gifts.

It's a good year for us.

It's a happy day and so good to celebrate it right before Christmas.

We've done the most living donor transplants since the program has opened.

We've done 27 up to today living donor transplants.

It's almost 40% of all the transplant that we've done.

And it has always been our goal to do as many as we can.

I think that being a living donor for somebody and giving their kidney is the biggest give it you can give to anybody.

I have never met a donor who regretted giving a kidney to somebody.

And I think donors actually get some benefit from donating as well.

You know, and I feel like you get that satisfaction of actually changing somebody's life, extending their life.

There are a couple of reasons why living donor transplant is the preferred way of transplant.

When people have kidney disease and when they get listed for a kidney transplant, if they do not have a living donor, they may be weighed up to 5 to 7 years for a cadaver kidney.

That's a long time.

And the little things can happen during that time.

Living donor kidneys work right away.

They also last longer than cadaver kidneys.

So we tell people that, you know, they will be off dialysis for significantly longer if they get a living donor kidney compared to cadaver kidney.

Living donor surgery is, you know, it's still a surgery, but it's not like an open heart surgery.

We're very proud that our donors do not end up in the hospital for a long period of time.

Usually, they go home on the second day after donation.

We had two donors who went to the next day after donation, and they did very well.

U of El Health was able to get 447 people to sign up to be organ donors this year.

They encourage more people to register online and donate life.

K Why talk?