John LaMattina, MD
John LaMattina, MD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Specialties
- Transplant
Locations
- Chicago - Hyde Park
- About
- Specialties & Areas of Expertise
- Locations & Patient Information
- Education & Research
- Accepted Insurance
- External Professional Relationships
[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm John LaMattina. I'm an associate professor of surgery at the University of Chicago. I've been in practice for more than a decade.
When I was quite a bit younger, I was actually in the fire service and worked in pre-hospital medicine. And ultimately, as I was bringing patients to the hospital, I wanted to, rather than bring them to the hospital and stabilize them in the field, I wanted to provide them with definitive care. And ultimately, I felt like transplant surgery was the most definitive care you could provide to somebody.
My particular interest is in both living donor liver and living donor kidney transplantation, with a focus both on liver and kidney transplantation. In terms of living donor kidney transplantation, our group has really developed the largest series in the world with single port donor nephrectomy. While it's technically more demanding than the standard approach, we found that the donors prefer it. It allows them to have a smaller scar and, we believe, heal faster and get back to normal life faster.
In addition to the living donor kidney surgical procedure, I've developed an interest in living donor liver transplantation. Our group has done about 100 cases of living donor liver transplant. The last time this was reviewed, in my practice, we had the best outcomes for the recipient in the United States with one year recipient survival.
My general goal with really any patient interaction is to get people back to not worrying about their health and having their health be something that they participate in. But really, this is not at the forefront of their mind and at their home worrying about the same thing that everybody else worries about, rather than their liver failing or their kidneys failing. And really, the goal for both donor and recipient surgeries is just to get people home safely to their families.
For transplant, this is challenging, and it involves a lot of people. And I typically tell people, if they receive a transplant, 1,000 people will be involved in their care and in that effort to get them home, of which the surgeons play a part. But really, it's one part of many, many parts.
In particular, here at the University of Chicago, for me, this is really where it all began. This is really the first living donor liver transplant in the world happened here. And that history and that field strength attracts a lot of talented individuals, and it's really something special to be part of.
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Specialties
Areas of Expertise
Board Certifications
- Surgery
Languages Spoken
- English
Medical Education
- Harvard University Medical School
Residency
- Massachusetts General Hospital
Fellowship
- University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics; Memorial Bahcelievler Hospital
News & Research
Insurance
- Aetna Better Health *see insurance page
- Aetna HMO (specialists only)
- Aetna Medicare Advantage HMO & PPO
- Aetna POS
- Aetna PPO
- BCBS Blue Precision HMO (specialists only)
- BCBS HMO (HMOI) (specialists only)
- BCBS Medicare Advantage HMO & PPO
- BCBS PPO
- Cigna HMO
- Cigna POS
- Cigna PPO
- CountyCare *see insurance page
- Humana Medicare Advantage Choice PPO
- Humana Medicare Advantage Gold Choice PFFS
- Humana Medicare Advantage Gold Plus HMO
- Medicare
- Multiplan PPO
- PHCS PPO
- United Choice Plus POS/PPO
- United Choice HMO (specialists only)
- United Options (PPO)
- United Select (HMO & EPO) (specialists only)
- United W500 Emergent Wrap
- University of Chicago Health Plan (UCHP)
Our list of accepted insurance providers is subject to change at any time. You should contact your insurance company to confirm UChicago Medicine participates in their network before scheduling your appointment. If you have questions regarding your insurance benefits at UChicago Medicine, please contact our financial counseling team at OPSFinancialCounseling@uchospitals.edu.
Some of our physicians and health professionals collaborate with external pharmaceutical, medical device, or other medical related entities to develop new treatments and products to improve clinical outcomes for patients. In some instances, the physician has ownership interests in the external entity and/or is compensated for advising or speaking about the entity’s products or treatments. These payments may include compensation for consulting and speaking engagements, equity, and/or royalties for products invented by our physicians. To assure objectivity and integrity in patient care, UChicago Medicine requires all physicians and health professionals to report their relationships and financial interests with external entities on an annual basis. This information is used to review relationships and transactions that might give rise to potential financial conflicts of interest, and when considered to be significant a management plan to mitigate any biases is created.
If you are a patient at UChicago Medicine and would like more information about your physician’s external relationships, please talk with your physician. You may also visit the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments website at https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/ . CMS Open Payments is a national disclosure program that promotes a more transparent and accountable health care system. It houses a publicly accessible database of payments that reporting entities, including drug and medical device companies, make to covered recipients like physicians and hospitals.
Information in the CMS Open Payments database could potentially contain inaccurately reported and out of date payment information. All information is open to personal interpretation, if there are questions about the data, patients and their advocates should speak directly to their health care provider for a better understanding.
Alcoholic Liver Disease and Liver Transplant: Expert Q&A
