Hawthorne High School’s AP Biology class, taught by Matthew Zaolino, took a trip to the Liberty Science Center to watch via video a live kidney transplant on Tuesday, November 26, 2013. Dr. Stuart R. Geffner, Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Surgery at Barnabas Health in New Jersey was to perform the surgery while the students watched in live-time and listened via two-way audio link.

According to Zaolino, “The purpose of the trip is, in part, to give students, many of which are interested in careers in medicine, the opportunity to have an experience involving interactions with medical persons.”

Unfortunately for the AP students, the live kidney transplant did not take place due to complications with the patient. However, the students saw footage of a kidney being removed from a donor and implanted into a person suffering from kidney failure. They were able to ask the surgeon questions and handle some surgical equipment.

AP Biology student and HHS senior, Allison Zuckerberg, claimed, “Even though the patient was too sick to undergo surgery, the surgeon was very informative, and we had just as much of an experience with the live footage [of the surgeon].”

Another student, HHS senior, Leon Kozlowski, said, “It was actually a better experience, because the surgeon came in to talk to us, and we got more information from watching an old surgery with him. It actually changed my career path: I want to become a surgeon now.”

All in all, the students declared the field trip was enlightening and they enjoyed the venture.