Director Hired for Scripps’ New Liver Program : Medicine: Dr. John J. Brems of St. Louis will establish the transplant program, San Diego County’s first.

Dr. John J. Brems, director of liver transplantation at St. Louis University Medical Center, will join Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation as director of a new liver transplant program, Scripps officials said Thursday.

The program will become the first of its kind in San Diego County. UCLA is now the closest medical center handling liver transplants. During the 1980s, UC San Diego Medical Center and Sharp Memorial Hospital each made unsuccessful attempts at establishing liver transplant programs.

Scripps is “extremely fortunate to have a surgeon of Dr. Brems’ caliber,” according to Scripps Clinic President Charles C. Edwards. “He has an extremely successful liver transplant program (in St. Louis), as well as experience starting a new transplant program.”

Brems opened the St. Louis transplant program in July, 1988. He previously spent two years working on liver transplants with Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, one of the nation’s most prominent and successful liver transplant doctors. Busuttil formed UCLA’s liver transplant program in 1984. That program now has a success rate of above 90%.

Brems, who will arrive in July, will first establish the liver transplant program, Edwards said. Scripps, which now conducts only bone marrow transplants, eventually will expand into pancreas and kidney transplants.

In October, Scripps and Sharp HealthCare announced plans to create a joint program for organ transplants. That plan called for Scripps to create a liver transplant program while Sharp would expand its heart transplant program to include lung and heart-lung transplants.

In 1988, UCSD Medical Center placed its troubled liver transplant program on hold, spokeswoman Nancy Stringer said Thursday.

The UCSD center has been doing kidney transplants for 21 years, Stringer said. Last summer it added staff and facilities needed to handle heart, lung and heart-lung transplants.

In a related development, Mercy Hospital has temporarily postponed its planned entry into the heart transplant arena.

Heart transplants are “on hold now” because of contractual problems with the surgeon who was recruited to run Mercy’s program, hospital spokeswoman Laura Avallone said Thursday. The doctor “had to return to the center where he previously was. There are still plans to get involved in heart transplants,” she said.

When Brems arrives at Scripps in July, he will be accompanied by a four-member team that includes a “donor awareness and procurement coordinator,” Scripps spokeswoman Sue Pondrom said.

Brems has published several articles on liver transplants and was a co-contributor with Busuttil to the book “Transplantation of the Liver.”