Editors:
A. L. Baert, Leuven
M. Knauth, Göttingen
K. Sartor, Heidelberg

2008

By the time I started my medical internship – which, despite many grey hairs on my head, is not too long ago – the “art” of transplantation was a somewhat esoteric subdiscipline of medicine reserved for a handful of experts based in highly specialized academic institutions. Although this core of transplantation medicine still exists today, substantial progress in the field of surgical transplantation techniques and post-transplantation care has brought transplant recipients beyond the boundaries of specialized centers into a much wider medical environment.