Albany Medical Center Welcomes Transplant Surgeon Alexandra Turner, MD

Alexandra Turner, MD, has joined Albany Medical Center as director of the living donor kidney program and director of community outreach for transplantation. She has been appointed associate professor of surgery at Albany Medical College.

An abdominal transplant surgeon with expertise in kidney and pancreas transplantation, living donation, and hepatopancreatobiliary surgery, Dr. Turner previously was associate professor of surgery in the division of abdominal organ transplantation at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. There, she served as director of the living donor kidney transplant program and received the Banner Health Hero Award. She was selected for the Spurring Success for Women in Medicine and Science Fellowship and named a faculty fellow of the Aequitas Health Equity Medical Honor Society.

Dr. Turner received her medical degree from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York and completed her general surgery residency at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. During her clinical training, she completed a two-year research fellowship in transplant immunology at the Emory Transplant Center, where she subsequently completed her abdominal organ transplant fellowship. Dually trained in abdominal transplant and hepatopancreatobiliary surgery, she completed her hepatopancreatobiliary surgery fellowship at Indiana University.

Dr. Turner’s research focuses on improving access to kidney transplantation and advancing transplant outcomes. She is the principal investigator of a grant-funded study to improve access to kidney transplantation for tribal communities in southern Arizona. Her research has been published in Nature, Nature Medicine, and the American Journal of Transplantation. She is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and serves as vice chair of the community engagement committee of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons.

Since 1969, Albany Medical Center’s kidney transplant program has received numerous accolades and is among the top-ranking programs in the nation. The transplant team takes a collaborative multidisciplinary approach to caring for transplant recipients to achieve successful outcomes for patients and provide support, before, during and after a transplant.

For more information about Albany Medical Center’s Kidney Transplant Program, call 518-262-5614.