About

Transplant Hepatology and education have been the cornerstones of my medical career.

Following my House-Staff training, I helped create an Internal Medicine House-Staff teaching rotation at the SLC - VA hospital where we treated critically ill patients with complications from alcoholism and acute withdrawal. From 1980-1986, I was the sole attending on a dedicated 12-bed unit where I mentored over 50 interns and managed several thousand patients. It was on this ward that I developed my love of Hepatology.

In 1986, I joined Dr. Terry Box’s liver transplant programs in the United States at Intermountain Healthcare/LDS Hospital; there, I was associated with over 1,300 transplanted patients. My love of Hepatology expanded to Transplant Hepatology.

In 2012, I returned to the University of Utah to join a newly restructured transplant team. I’m proud to say our new team improved our Scientific Registry for Transplant Recipients (SRTR) Outcomes ranking second place within 18 months. For the past 5 years our Transplant has been ranked in the top five programs based on outcomes.

In this fledging discipline of Transplant Hepatology, I understood that the education of our fellow physicians, trainees, staff, community, providers, and medical personnel is required to achieve these stellar sustainable outcomes.

To that end, education as my focus of excellence began during my residency. Over the years, I presented numerous lectures on diseases of the liver – from the bedside to the lectern. I served as a mentor on the telemedicine platform, Project Echo, for Hepatitis C and a variety of other liver diseases.

I am active with Medical Student Education and presenting on Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, in addition I have been active with our GI Fellowship training.

I received from Dr. Peterson, the previous Fellowship Program Director the highest commendation for my lectures to House-Staff and fellows rotating on our transplant wards and ICUs.

In addition, I created a lecture series for multi-disciplinary staff involved in post-transplant care to address the first 100 days post-transplant addressing events common to the post-surgical period, immunosuppression and the unique profile of infections.

I participated as a founder, co-director and presenter at the Regional “Intermountain West Hepatology Update” started in 2013. Several years ago, we transferred the conference to the University and joined to co-produce with the Baylor College of Medicine. This CME program has continued since its inception, except for last year.

I have been an invited speaker/presenter on Hepatology, Transplant, and Value Topics at regional meetings in the Western United States, Texas, and Chicago.

In 2017, I developed a unique educational outreach lecture program for community hospitalists throughout the Western United States.

My work in education naturally transitioned into clinical practice advancements.

I’ve created many products of Excellence including:

• The first international consensus committee that created and published “International Guidelines on Immunosuppression-A Consensus Paper 2018” for the International Liver Transplant Society (ILTS), following an invitation to participate as an expert on this esteemed committee.
• I sat on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) Region 5 Transplant Review Board adjudicating the national UNOS policy for listing status.
• As the first Medical Director for Outreach in Liver Transplant, I developed a unique program for the Western United States which included the development of metrics and templates in Epic to assess the outcomes of our referrals and a process for communicating back to our referring providers.
• In the past year, this program increased referrals/evaluations by 25% and transplants by 31%.

In addition, I created several value quality outcome projects available in Value Summary Portal in the Pulse, on the University website, addressing physician workflow efficiency and a series of manuals to educate new patients and train newly hired medical assistants.

My value work transitioned into a journal publication in the School of Medicine Alumni Magazine addressing Strategies to prevent provider burnout using the value acquired during the project. This article generated speaker invitations where I presented this topic to the Baylor College of Medicine’s Annual Hot Topic Update receiving one of the highest reviews in the conference’s history, and in addition invitation then a presentation as the keynote speaker at the Idaho Rheumatology Annual Meeting.

COVID had a significant impact, postponing my keynote address at the First Annual Cristopher Broelsch Lecture Series Transplant Grand Rounds on behalf of the University of Chicago Transplant Institute Transplant, a visiting professor presentation at Scripps for their fellows and House-Staff, Pulmonary Grand Rounds at UUMC, presentation to the Moran Eye Institute faculty, multiple outreach presentations, and cancellation of our IMW Annual Hepatology Update March 28, 2020.

To increase the scope and durability of my work, I created this website, www.RayThomasonMD.com