UC Davis Medical Center is once again doing kidney transplants for Kaiser Permanente, which suspended its own program in San Francisco last month amid allegations that organizational problems might have contributed to transplant delays.

Kaiser is transferring its Northern California patients to the UC Davis and San Francisco medical centers, which treated Kai-ser kidney transplant patients up until 2004 when Kaiser started its program.

Among the first transfers are 141 patients on Kaiser's "group 1" list, which includes people most ready to receive transplants from cadavers or living donors. UC Davis expects to treat 35 or more of Kaiser's group 1 patients and will treat others on the wait list who choose to have their transplants at UC Davis. The university is working with Kaiser, the state Department of Managed Health Care and the United Network for Organ Sharing to move the patients from the Kaiser system into the UC Davis system.

In this new round of treating Kaiser patients, UC Davis surgeons performed their first kidney transplant on June 9.

Richard Perez and John McVicar performed the transplant, taking a kidney from a live donor and putting the organ in Simeon Trotter, a 28-year-old Dixon man who began kidney dialysis five years ago.

Perez, a surgery professor and director of the UC Davis Transplant Center, said Trotter's records came in from Kaiser the week before the surgery, and a follow-up call took place June 6. The UC Davis team "had the donor and recipient evaluated and ready for transplant" on June 8, Perez said.

"The quick transfer of this patient shows that the process can go smoothly and efficiently."

Trotter suffers from chronic glomerulonephritis, which hampers the kidneys' ability to remove waste and excess fluids. Trotter received a kidney from family friend and retired nurse Joan Roby. She and Trotter are members of the same church in Davis and have known each other for 15 years.

"This is a great gift," Trotter said before the surgery. "I am so thankful that Joan was willing to go through the process for me."

The transplant was the second for Trotter, who was first diagnosed with kidney disease at age 15 and received a kidney from his father a year later. Trotter's body rejected that kidney in 2001, when he was 23.

Since then, Trotter underwent nine surgeries to keep his blood vessels open so they could continue to serve as ports for dialysis treatment.

Earlier this year, Roby was curious about what was involved in becoming a kidney donor and began asking questions. To her surprise, it was not as difficult a process as she had thought.

"I always thought that the odds for kidney donors matching up with a recipient was extremely rare, something like one in 10,000," she said. "It's actually a much more simple process that starts with being of a compatible blood type and having good health — no diabetes or high blood pressure, no smoking and not being overweight.

"When I found out that having one kidney wouldn't significantly affect my life, I prayed and felt led to become a donor."

Trotter and Roby fell into the norms for hospital stays after kidney transplants: five to seven days for recipients, and two to three days for donors. That worked out just fine for Roby, who had two of her children's graduation ceremonies to attend.

Before the surgery, Trotter said: "I want to get through the transplant and take one day at a time." Eventually, he said, he will think about going back to California State University, Sacramento, where he studied business before kidney disease interrupted his education.

Carole Gan is the News Service manager for UC Davis Health System Public Affairs.