Jentai Tsai is no stranger to hard work. Coming to the US from Taiwan in the 1970s, he worked countless hours founding and developing the first bank in New York focused specifically on the needs of immigrant communities.
At the age of 80, after most of his peers had long retired, Jentai was still going strong—that is, until a growing tumor in his liver threatened to finally slow him down.
His options seemed limited; surgery could remove the cancer, but doctors thought his age made him too fragile to tolerate the procedure. He needed someone who believed in his strength and who had the experience and expertise to make sure that he wasn’t putting himself at too great a risk. Jentai found that partner in Dr. Tomoaki Kato.
Like Jentai, Dr. Kato had forged a reputation based on hard work and perseverance. His pioneering multi-organ transplant surgeries are internationally recognized for their complexity (they can take over 24 hours to complete). When it came to treating Jentai, Dr. Kato was confident that surgical removal of his tumor would give him the best chance for survival.
A 10 centimeter liver tumor had threatened to end Jentai’s life. Now, with the help of Dr. Kato, that tumor was gone. Five years later, he was still cancer-free, and finally ready to retire—on his own terms.