Hundreds of people owe their lives to Dr. Livingston Wong, a pioneer of transplant surgery in the Islands, who also founded the Organ Donor Center of Hawai'i and helped set up the 911 system on O'ahu.

But when Wong talks about the advances in transplant surgery in Hawai'i over the last 30 years, he rarely talks about himself. "Medicine is about taking care of people," the 77-year-old says, not about getting recognition or awards.

It is that humility that has kept Wong largely out of the limelight, despite his years of "firsts" in the Hawai'i medical community.

But Wong will finally be recognized for his lifelong achievements Saturday, at the 20th-anniversary celebration of the Organ Donor Center of Hawai'i.

Stephen Kula, executive director of the center, said the honor is long overdue.

"Let's put it this way: He really is the founder and the father of transplants in Hawai'i," Kula said.

Wong studied medicine under Dr. Joseph Murray, who performed the world's first successful adult kidney transplant in 1954 and won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1990.

When Wong returned to Hawai'i in 1965 after medical school, he started his own practice. In 1969, he performed the first kidney transplant from a living donor in the Islands.

Two years later, he did the first kidney transplant from a deceased donor in Hawai'i. He is also credited with performing the first bone-marrow transplant in the Islands. And Wong oversaw the first heart transplant in Hawai'i in 1987.

Along the way, Wong helped set up the 911 system in the 1970s.

Before the emergency system was in place, people had to call different numbers for the Fire Department, police and paramedics. Wong helped get the 911 system running with federal grants. The money also paid for ambulances. And it was used to train paramedics, Wong said.

He said the old system only trained ambulance responders in first aid. "They had a hard time," Wong said. "They would throw the patient in and rush them to the hospital."

Dr. Linda Rosen, chief of the state Health Department's Emergency Medical Services and Injury Prevention System branch, said Wong has been recognized for his contributions to organ transplantation, but few outside the health community know he was so instrumental in setting up the 911 system.

"I think many people feel that he was the father of EMS in Hawai'i," she said. "His contribution is considered so significant.

"He understood what the consequences of trauma were, and he organized a system of care that could save lives."

After helping to start the 911 system, Wong founded the Organ Donor Center of Hawai'i in 1987, seeing a need to coordinate transplant doctors, donors and patients. Today, it is the only federally recognized nonprofit organization in the state authorized to recover organs.

The organ center links donors with people waiting for organs, and also raises awareness about organ donation.

Wong said he pursued transplant surgery as a profession because of its potential in the 1950s and '60s, when he was starting out.

Despite tremendous advances over the course of his career, Wong says there is still more to learn and room for the field to grow.

Though he is retired, Wong keeps an office and is working to secure a federal grant to study stem cells with other doctors.

And his daughter, Linda Wong, is following in his footsteps. She is medical director at the Organ Donor Center of Hawai'i, and specializes in liver transplants.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.