Dr. Velma Patricia Scantlebury, MD

Velma P. Scantlebury, M.D., is the associate director of the Kidney Transplant Program at Christiana Care. She comes to Christiana Care from the University of South AlabamaÂ’s Regional Transplant Center, where she served as a professor of surgery, assistant dean for community education and director of transplantation. She has been recognized as one of the Best Doctors in America by BestDoctors.com.

Dr. Scantlebury has served as a national spokesperson for Linkages to Life, an initiative to address the shortage of African-American organ donors. In her career, she has performed more than 1,000 kidney transplants. She became the nationÂ’s first African-American female transplant surgeon in 1989.

Dr. Scantlebury earned her medical degree from Columbia University in New York City. She was an intern and resident in general surgery at Harlem Hospital Center in New York City. She completed her fellowship training in transplantation surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and then joined …the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as an assistant professor of surgery in 1989. She rose to the rank of associate professor prior to her appointment at the University of Southern Alabama in Mobile.

Dr. ScantleburyÂ’s special interests include: researching the end results of donation and transplantation in African-Americans; increasing organ donation in the African-American community through education and awareness; increasing the incidence of living donor transplantation by education; and treating viral infections in kidneys.