The organ donation and transplantation program at UF&Shands, the University of Florida Academic Health Center, has won three national awards.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded its Medal of Honor to several programs within the Shands Transplant Center at the University of Florida and its organ procurement arm LifeQuest. The awards are given based on rates of transplant, patient survival after transplant, and death while waiting for a transplant.

Shands and LifeQuest won silver medals in the “donor hospital” and “organ procurement organization” categories, respectively. The kidney transplant program won bronze, as did the kidney-pancreas transplant program.

“This award recognizes the hard work that all the people involved in the kidney and kidney-pancreas transplant program have put in,” said Shehzad Rehman, M.D., medical director of the UF College of Medicine kidney and pancreas programs. “It is my hope that we can continue to improve our outcomes and work towards an even higher level of achievement.”