NEWARK, NJ — When a Newark doctor throws the first pitch at Yankees Stadium on Friday night, he will have the power of a thousand hearts guiding the baseball from his hand.

To kick off the game, Mark Zucker, the director of cardiothoracic transplant at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center for more than 30 years, will represent the hospital's Heart Failure Treatment and Transplant program, which recently celebrated a huge milestone: 1,000 heart transplants. The hospital reached their milestone on July 20, according to a statement from administrators.

See related article: Newark Hospital On Pace To Perform 1000th Heart Transplant This Summer "The good doctor has been practicing his swing for at least a week now and everyone at Newark Beth Israel is rooting for him," hospital administrators said. "The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) was still in its infancy in the late 1980's," Zucker previously stated, recalling the program's beginnings at Newark Beth Israel. "At the time, organ recovery and transplantation was still dominated by doctor referrals and smaller networks of organ procurement organizations. Newark Beth Israel's location in New Jersey was also a boon to the program, since it was a member of a different allocation region from New York City. Doctors would tell their patients that if they needed an excellent program, for faster organ availability, they should go to New Jersey, and they'd refer them to me."

Margarita Camacho, the hospital's surgical director of heart transplant and the doctor who performed the 1,000th transplant, said that she was extremely proud of the medical center's staff for their "dedication to excellence." See related article: Newark Surgeon Is 1st Female To Earn Prestigious Medical Award

Mark J. Zucker, Director Cardiothoracic Transplant Program; Dr. Margarita Camacho, Surgical Director, Heart Transplant; Darrell K. Terry, Sr., President and CEO, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and Children's Hospital of New Jersey and the Heart Failure Treatment and Transplant team

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