Flescher Appointed to NYS Transplant Council

STONY BROOK, NY, March 25, 2022 – Andrew Flescher, PhD, Core Faculty member in the Program in Public Health, Professor in Family, Population, and Preventive Medicine, and Professor of English at Stony Brook University, has been selected by the governor of New York to serve on the New York Transplant Council. Flescher will serve in this capacity through December 31, 2023, at which time the appointment is renewable. The council consists of 21 members, seven of which are directly appointed by the governor, including Flescher. He is to serve as the expert in medical ethics on this statewide council.

The New York Transplant Council is a statutorily mandated group that serves in an advisory capacity to the Commissioner and Department of Health on matters related to donation, procurement, storage, allocation, distribution and transplantation of organs and tissues. For more information about the council and members, see this link.

Flescher has had been centrally involved in transplant issues, particular from ethical standpoints, within the state and nationally for five years. For the past 10 years, he has been a key member of Stony Brook’s Transplantation Program as its in-house ethicist and as a living donor advocate.

Currently, Flescher has a national role with the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) Ethics Committee for the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), serving as its vice chair. UNOS is the private, non-profit organization that manages the U.S organ transplantation system under contract with the federal government. He will become the OPTN/UNOS Ethics Committee’s chair in July 2023.