If you have end-stage liver disease, a liver transplant can bring hope. Thousands of patients have trusted their care to the experienced team at University of Florida Health Shands Transplant Center. Our center has over 30 years of experience providing excellent care to patients with complex liver diseases.

Our multidisciplinary care team draws on the expertise of many specialties working to provide you with the best care possible. While other centers may follow a liver transplant patient for several months after surgery, at UF Health, we follow our patients for life.

Our commitment is reflected in outstanding outcomes. The most recent data released in January 2024 by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, or SRTR, placed us No. 1 among liver transplant programs in the country.

Liver transplant services

Our board-certified surgeons are faculty members at the University of Florida and are expertly trained in general surgery and liver transplantation surgery. Our outpatient practice offers a wide array of surgical consultations and evaluations to determine if you or a loved one are a candidate for a liver transplant.

Our team provides you with a customized treatment plan. This means our team works closely together and with you to understand you, your liver condition and your treatment goals, enabling us to develop an optimal treatment plan based on your needs. Our team closely follows you as you await transplant and following transplant, which helps to improve patient outcomes.

An evaluation is scheduled testing to see how advanced your liver disease is as well as to ensure that the rest of your body is healthy enough to manage a liver transplant. While waiting for an organ, you will receive a thorough yearly examination. This is because livers can become available quickly, and you need to be physically ready for liver transplantation at short notice.

Once you are determined to be a good candidate for a liver transplant, you will be placed on the liver transplant waiting list. Your MELD score, or Model for End-Stage Liver Disease, will determine how long you will wait for a new liver.

When a suitable donor becomes available, a donor transplant coordinator will call you.

Liver transplant surgery

Liver transplant surgery will last between 4-8 hours. Following surgery, each transplant recipient will likely be in the intensive care unit (ICU) for about two days, and then spend another 8-10 days in a regular hospital room. This is so we can provide close follow-up care after surgery to help monitor medications and ensure the transplant recipient is recovering properly with a healthy liver.

Make a gift

Help support our liver transplant patients by making a gift.

• Shands Liver Transplant Program
• UF Health Patient and Family Transplant Housing
• UF Health Adult Liver Transplant Program Support Fund