CHRISTUS Hospital Performs Successful Double Lung Transplant in Mexico

Named by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of its “150 Hospital and Health System CFOs to Know,” Paul Generale has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the health care industry. Since 2016, Paul Generale has served as an executive vice president and the chief strategy and network officer of CHRISTUS Health in Dallas.

With a mission of extending the healing ministry of Jesus Christ through holistic patient care that treats mind, body, and spirit, CHRISTUS Health has a facility located in Monterrey, Mexico, called CHRISTUS MUGUERZA Hospital Alta Especialidad. For the past 85 years, this institution has been regarded as one of the most prestigious hospitals in Mexico’s Nuevo Leon.

This hospital recently made headlines for performing on a patient with COVID-19 a successful double lung transplant, the first transplant of its kind conducted in Latin America. Before the transplant, the medical team was caring for the patient with an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), a life support therapy that substitutes the functions of the lungs. “It is very important to point out lung transplantation isn’t a treatment for COVID-19. Instead it helps with what the disease leaves behind, which can be severely damaged lungs left scarred and barely functioning following an acute infection,” explained Dr. Uriel Chavarria, medical coordinator of CHRISTUS MUGUERZA’s Lung Transplant Program.