Stanford Hospital & Clinics received the Gold Medal of Honor from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for its accomplishments in the field of organ transplantation and donation at an awards ceremony on Oct. 4.

The award ceremony, titled the “7th National Learning Congress for the Donation and Transplantation Community of Practice,” was held in Grapevine, Texas. Timothy Chamberlain, a Stanford Hospital social worker and Assistant Patient Care Manager Maureen Fay, accepted the award. Stanford Hospital was one of 22 hospitals recognized this year.

“This award is a testimony of Stanford’s commitment to honoring patients’ wishes and rights to help save the lives of others,” Chamberlain said, according to a PRWeb article. “But, most of all, this award honors the incredible people who volunteered to be organ and tissue donors and the families who agreed – even in the midst of grief and loss – to give the gift of life to total strangers.”

More than 110,000 people remain on the UNOS National Organ Transplant Waiting List. According to Dr. Carlos Equivel, chief of Stanford’s Transplantation Division, “one in three will die due to the organ shortage.”

Around 10,000 people are waiting just within the California Transplant Donor Network (CTDN). A single donor has the potential to save eight lives.

“I hope this award not only serves as a way of honoring those who generously donated, but also helps raise much-needed awareness of the organ donor shortage crisis and prompts people to register,” said Waldo Concepcion M.D., chief of clinical transplantation at Stanford, to PRWeb.