Dr. Esber Nabeeh Scott Samara, MD

INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center kidney transplant service was established in the fall of 1986 under the leadership of E. N. Scott Samara, M.D. Dr. Samara has served as surgical director for the kidney transplant program from its inception.

He continues to serve as the primary surgeon and surgical director for the kidney transplant division of the Nazih Zuhdi Transplant Institute.

Dr. Samara received his B.S. degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1964 and his medical degree from the University of Oklahoma College of medicine in 1968. Following medical school Dr. Samara completed his internship at the University Hospital in Oklahoma City. He then completed a Residency in Urology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan from 1969 to 1973.

Dr. Samara began his career in the Department of Urology at the University of Oklahoma in 1973 as an assistant clinical professor. He was promoted to associated clinical professor in 1980 and full clinical professor in 1986. As …director of kidney transplantation from 1973 to 1980, chief of the kidney transplant section from 1980 to 2006, and the chief of the pediatric transplant section from 1976 to 2007, Dr. Samara was an integral part of kidney transplantation at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center.

Dr. Samara is a member of Alpha Omega honorary medical society, the American Urologic Society, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, American College of Surgeons, Society of University Urologists, and American Association of Clinical Urologists. He is a founding member of the Urologic Society for Transplantation and Vascular Surgery and a founding member and past president of the Oklahoma Transplantation Society. He is also past president of the Oklahoma Urologic Society.

In 1980 Dr. Samara developed the Oklahoma Organ Retrieval System, the first organized organ procurement agency in the state of Oklahoma. He then co-founded the Oklahoma Organ Sharing Network in 1986. The OOSN is now LifeShare of Oklahoma and is the procurement agency for the entire state of Oklahoma. He served as president of the OOSN for its first two years of existence and again in 1999. He has been on its board or directors since its inception. His service to the National Kidney Foundation has included serving as a member, secretary, and president of the National Kidney Foundation of Oklahoma medical advisory board. He has been the chairman of the department of Urology at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center from 2003 to present.

In Oklahoma, Dr. Samara was the first to perform a living related donor and a living unrelated donor transplant, the first for an identical twin transplant, and the first and only to transplant a kidney in a child weighing less than 10 pounds.

He also was a member of surgical teams that perform the first kidney/pancreas transplant, the first kidney/liver transplant, the first laparoscopic donor nephrectomy and the first heart transplant. Because of his expertise, he was called on to manage the anti-rejection program for the first three heart transplants in Oklahoma City.

Dr. Samara has performed close to 2,000 kidney transplants for patients in the state of Oklahoma.