Patients come to UW Medical Center seeking our experts for diagnosis, treatment and care. They come from across the Pacific Northwest for specialized care not available in their hometowns – organ transplants that provide a second chance at life or specialized services for high risk births.
At UW Medical Center, patients come first. For half a century, our staff have provided compassionate care and the most advanced technology. Our many medical discoveries are the result of our physician-researchers searching for solutions to their patients’ problems. Over the course of treatment, our patients form bonds with our health-care providers that often last a lifetime.
At UWMC, we help patients get back to what’s truly important – living their lives.
Patient Stories
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Roy Matsumoto
Roy Matsumoto, a World War II vet who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, had a failing aortic valve but surgery posed too much risk. He received a replacement valve in a catheter procedure instead.
Watch story >
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Matt Gregory
Matt Gregory was thrilled to spend his 29th birthday at the hospital because he received donor lungs in a transplant. He has lived with cystic fibrosis, a disabling genetic disease. Now he can look forward to having the energy to play with his 2-year-old daughter.
Read more >
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Cheryl Colehour
Cheryl Colehour had a cancerous lobe of liver removed via da Vinci robot-assisted surgery. The procedure left her with a much smaller scar and hastened her postoperative recovery – which, in turn, enabled her to start chemotherapy earlier. Read more >
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Bill Bailey
A year after his successful liver transplant, Samish artist Bill Bailey returned to UW Medical Center to honor his caregivers and his donor with a drum ceremony. He also donated artwork to 4-Southeast, the hospital's transplant wing, and describes the work.
See a video describing the donated artwork >
See a video of the drum ceremony >
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Jason Stahl
If past is prologue, as Shakespeare suggested, Jason Stahl’s future appeared more gray than rosy when he landed at UW Medical Center (UWMC) in 2006. While he had led a relatively normal, active life for years, Stahl, then 34, might have legitimately wondered whether he would see 40, given past health pitfalls.
It was May 2010 when Stahl met with UWMC’s transplantation specialists after his kidney began to fail. Yes — kidney, singular. Read more >
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Hathaway Family
After naps or when bedtime draws near, Diane and Thad Hathaway of Pullman, Wash., catch themselves marveling at their four boisterous toddlers and relishing the way their oldest son Cody, age 7, fills his role as big brother.
Only two short years ago, the toddlers, quintuplets, were tiny preemies in the UWMC neonatal intensive care unit. They were born about eight weeks early and each weighed about two and a half pounds. Read more >
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Jim Rockstad
In 1991, Jim Rockstad was in a head-on car crash, and without airbags to protect him, he suffered whiplash and bulging discs in his neck. Soon after, he noticed he was losing the range of motion in his right arm. He couldn’t throw a baseball without pain shooting through his shoulder and arm.
“I still played racquetball – my passion – but it was harder to do as my range of motion was going away,” said Rockstad, who has played racquetball since 1974. He packed on the ice, swallowed Advil and kept exercising so he could continue racquetball. But his game was slowly going away. Read more >
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David Watkins
For seven months, David Watkins lay in a UW Medical Center hospital bed wondering when, and if, he would see his 7-year-old daughter MaKhaylla again.
“I wanted to go home so badly,” said Watkins, 51, an oil field worker from Anchorage, Alaska. Even so, “I stayed in good humor all the time.”
While waiting for a heart transplant, Watkins’ medical condition was so tenuous that staff jokingly called him “Mr. Nine Lives.” Every time Watkins seemed on the brink of death, he came back. Read more >
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