Surgeon Tomoaki Kato Leaves Hospital After Two-Month COVID Battle

Accompanied by boisterous cheers and chants of "Kato! Kato!", Columbia University surgeon Tomoaki Kato, MD, left NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center today after two months of treatment for COVID-19.

Kato was admitted to the hospital on March 25. 

"It was really tough, I was on a ventilator for two weeks and even on ECMO for a few days," Kato said before singing "A Whole New World" with colleagues from the Department of Surgery at a Healing Concert earlier this month. "But thanks to my colleagues, and thanks to God, I was able to survive."

Tomoaki Kato, MD, is known for unique and innovative surgeries for adults and children, including a six-organ transplant and a procedure that resuscitates a failing liver by attaching a partial donor liver. Kato is professor of surgery at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the surgical director of Adult and Pediatric Liver and Intestinal Transplantation at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

Kato received his medical degree from the Osaka University Medical School in Japan and received his residency training in surgery at Osaka University Hospital and Itami City Hospital in Hyogo, Japan. He completed a clinical fellowship in transplantation at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital, in Miami, Florida.