Starzl documentary honored with Donate Life award

Burden of Genius,” a documentary that tells the story of Pittsburgh transplant pioneer and surgeon Thomas Starzl, was honored on Oct. 8 with the Donate Life Hollywood Inspire Award for motion pictures, television shows and documentaries that shed a positive light on organ donation.

Other recipients included NBC’s “New Amsterdam,” Showtime’s “Kidding” and Nova’s “Transplanting Hope.”

The Starzl documentary, co-produced by Carl Kurlander, a senior lecturer in Pitt’s Film and Media Studies Program, details the surgeon’s 60-year career, including the world’s first successful liver transplant in 1967 at the University of Colorado University Hospital.

Starzl joined the Pitt School of Medicine in 1981 as professor of surgery and led a team of surgeons who performed 30 liver transplants that year, launching the first liver transplant program in the country. Starzl’s achievements in both surgery and research have been widely credited as transforming modern medicine.

Find more information about the award on Pittwire.