Geisinger doctor honored after life-saving liver transplant

Apr. 26—DANVILLE — Dr. Michael Marvin, Geisinger's chair of transplant surgery, said Tuesday doctors in his profession live through the highest of highest and the lowest of lows.

Tuesday he had the chance to revisit with Jaclyn Smith one of those highs.

Marvin was recognized by the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) with its Everyday Hero honor, awarded to "physicians who go above and beyond in providing patient care."

Tuesday's reunion came two years after Smith's successful liver transplant at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. Smith, from Gouldsboro, said she nominated Marvin for the award because he gave her and her family a second chance.

"I am able to see my kids grow up," the mother of two said. "You recognized me as a person. As a mother, wife, daughter. They made me feel like a person. I thought you deserved recognition for that. I am grateful to see you again."

Both Marvin and Smith admitted Smith wasn't in great shape when she came to Geisinger.

Marvin said Smith was in need of a liver, had lung damage and was on and off a ventilator to help her breathe. Marvin said he had a previous experience with a similar transplant more than a decade ago that didn't hold, so he said he wasn't going to take a similar risk at first.

"They said I was 34 years old and we made the decision to try it," Smith said. "It worked, thank God. It's amazing that I am able to stand here."

Advances in medicine and learning made the transplant successful, Marvin said.

"You learn a lot of things we do wrong in this field and life in general," the doctor said. "We did something with (Smith) we never did."

Marvin called in a total team effort, acknowledging "it is an award for Geisinger," pointing out cardiac surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and other hospital staff.

This transplant involved extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, an advanced therapy that delivers healthy oxygen to the blood, cycling bad blood out of the body, oxygenating it and then returning it to the body.

It is a labor-intensive procedure requiring round-the-clock care.

"We had the pieces here to make this successful," Marvin said. "We talked about ECMO and within a half-hour, it was up. You can't do that in a lot of places. We had everything at Geisinger to do it. Some places might not have had all the pieces, skills and critical care teams. It was unbelievable."

"A lot of stuff I don't remember," Smith admitted. "I would hear it through my husband. Things he tells me, I can't believe I was able to get through."

"We want to bring light to our physicians doing great things for their patients and communities," Katie Jordan, of PAMED said. "We're taking this time to recognize the impact he's made on one life and you can multiply that over his years of service and see the ripple effect.

"He's not standing on a podium telling us how great he is, so we're doing it for him."

Smith said she knows she isn't in the clear yet, but was thankful to see Marvin in person for the presentation.

"At the end, we're thankful that another did well," he said, "It's been two years, we're good. We're happy."