 |
David Mercer, M.D. |
That’s the goal of UNMC transplant surgeon David Mercer, M.D., Ph.D., as he takes over as director of the medical center’s intestinal rehabilitation program for Deb Sudan, M.D., who has moved onto Duke University.
Being one of the nation’s first intestinal rehab programs, UNMC already has high status among other such programs around the nation.
“What we want is to be considered the Mecca of intestinal rehabilitation,” said Dr. Mercer, who is an assistant professor of surgery at UNMC. “When people think of intestinal rehab, we want them to think of us.”
Intestinal rehabilitation involves finding ways for those who have lost significant portions of intestine to be what Dr. Mercer calls “enterally
independent,” which means they aren’t fed intravenously.
This is often a problem for those who have lost intestine from a transplant or because of some other cause.
Dr. Sudan became world-renowned for her work in organ rehabilitation during her tenure as the program’s director. Dr. Mercer said he wants to pick up where she left off and grow the entire program.
“The growth of this program under Deb was amazing,” he said. “Because of the work she has done, the importance of intestinal rehabilitation became apparent to many in the field.
“We want to continue this growth and increase our profile on a national level.”
To that end, Dr. Mercer, along with Wendy Grant, M.D., from The Nebraska Medical Center’s liver/small intestine transplant team, will work together to handle the ever increasing clinical demands of the program.
|
|
Dr. Mercer — a native of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada — first came to UNMC as a surgical transplant fellow in 2002 because of the medical center’s reputation as one of the best transplant units in the world.
In 2004, he returned to his native Canada to begin practicing but all the while he had a desire to return to UNMC.
“Once you’ve been around the best, which I was at UNMC, it was hard to move away from that,” Dr. Mercer said.
So when he was contacted in 2005 about an opening in the UNMC transplant team, he jumped at the chance.
He has since become a valuable asset to the transplant team, said Alan Langnas, D.O., professor of surgery at UNMC and chief of transplantation at The Nebraska Medical Center.
“Dr. Sudan did an amazing job directing our intestinal rehabilitation program and we truly wish her the best of luck at Duke,” Dr. Langnas said. “I have the utmost confidence that our program will continue to grow and thrive under Dr. Mercer’s leadership.”