Despite the short wait, about half the transplant patients go outside the state.
It is still considered experimental for other types of transplant patients.
It is especially important that transplant patients avoid getting infections.
At the time, the boy was the youngest transplant patient ever.
He then drew up individual lifting programs for each transplant patient.
They are among a growing number of groups in the city that offer free housing to waiting transplant patients.
A transplant patient who became pregnant would face many potential complications.
"I'd kind of like to work with transplant patients," she said.
So a 55-year-old man got a shot at a new life: two-thirds of heart- transplant patients live another 10 years.
By 1984 two-thirds of all heart transplant patients survived for five years or more.