NEWS

Georgetown surgery professor to discuss organ transplants for minorities

CHAPEL HILL -- "Donor Allocation Issues in Transplantation for Minorities" is the subject of the 23^rd Annual Lawrence Zollicoffer Lecture, to be held Feb. 14 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

The lecture will be at 4 p.m. in the Old Clinic Auditorium on the fourth floor of UNC Hospitals. The guest lecturer is Dr. Lynt B. Johnson, an associate professor of surgery and chief of the division of transplant surgery at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Johnson also is director of hepatobiliary surgery at the Lombardi Cancer Center and director of general surgery-graduate surgical education at Georgetown University Hospital. He received his undergraduate degree with honors from Duke University and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Johnson received the 2000 Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award from the department of surgery at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Members of the UNC chapter of the Student National Medical Association, with the support of the dean of the School of Medicine, established the Zollicoffer Lectureship in 1981. It was named in honor of Dr. Lawrence Zollicoffer (1930-1976), the fourth black graduate of the UNC School of Medicine and founder of the Garwyn Medical Center in Baltimore. The Baltimore community recognized Zollicoffer as a supporter and activist in the struggle for civil and human rights.

The lecture honors the memory of Zollicoffer, commemorates more than 40 years of minority presence in the UNC School of Medicine, increases the awareness of minority health issues and introduces the student body to dynamic minority role models in the field of medicine.

- 30 -

School of Medicine contact: Tom Hughes, (919) 966-6047 or tahughes@unch.unc.edu