kidney transplant


March 12, 2018

Organ Recipient Befriends His Donor’s Family

Katrina Dupins

March 12, 2018 | Trenton Williams, 24, a graduate of Lamar High School in 2006, had big, blue eyes and a warm smile. His mother, Jeri’ Williams, remembers him being trustworthy and loyal. The youngest of four siblings, he was a smart and meticulous planner who worked hard, she said. He was successful at his…


December 6, 2017

Three Arkansans to be Honored in 2018 Rose Parade

Kate Franks

Dec. 6, 2017 | Thirty-eight-year-old Melissa Owen of Little Rock died on Christmas Eve 2014 after suffering a brain aneurysm and a stroke. Two days later – just one day after being placed on the transplant list — Yolanda Harshaw, also of Little Rock, received a call that the heart she needed for a life-saving…


April 8, 2016

Brother-to-Brother Kidney Transplants Run in Family

Yavonda Chase

James Johnson Jr. (left) laughs with his brother, Jeff, two days after the brothers underwent kidney transplant surgeries at UAMS. Jeff donated a kidney to James.

April 8, 2016 | For Jeff Johnson, the decision to give his older brother, James, a kidney was a no-brainer. It was a decision the 48-year-old had made 31 years earlier when their father underwent a kidney transplant at UAMS with an organ donated by one of his brothers. James Johnson Sr., along with another…


February 2, 2010

UAMS Helps College Student Donate Kidney to Mena Man

Liz Caldwell

Twenty-one-year-old Alissa Pitcher of Grand Rapids, Mich., was moved last spring by a Mena, Arkansas, mother’s plea on behalf of her son. The request for prayers came via e-mail from an old family friend, Tammy Hamelink, whose 23-year-old son, Kryn, was in desperate need of a kidney transplant.