Andrew Baird

MSN, RN CCTC
2022 Nurse of the Year Awardee

Liver Health Foundation is happy to honor Andrew Baird as 2022 Nurse of the year awardee. Andrew has been honored multiple times by transplant patients and is highly regarded by his colleagues and transplant surgeons.

Andrew Baird has been a proud member of the UCLA Liver Transplant Team since 2006. He started his career at UCLA Health as a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN.) After a brief relocation to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009 to accommodate his wife’s doctoral program in nursing, he returned to UCLA as a Registered Nurse (RN) in 2010, where he earned his Clinical Nurse III designation, served as a relief charge nurse, and chaired the Unit Practice Council before moving into his current role as a transplant coordinator in 2016. Andrew earned his Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) in administration in 2017 and became certified as a transplant coordinator in 2018. Andrew has always felt it is an honor to be a UCLA nurse. He feels lucky to have had so many professional opportunities. Andrew Baird has received three patient-nominated Daisy Awards during his career at UCLA. He spends hours with transplant patients, understanding their situations and helping them through a difficult journey from pretransplant to their care post transplantation.

In his current role as an inpatient liver transplant coordinator, Andrew assists patients with their transplant evaluation, which includes learning about their expectations for transplant and preparing them for their transplant journey. He works closely with UCLA’s multidisciplinary team members, all of whom play a part in the decision to place the patient onto the transplant list.

Andrew loves being a transplant coordinator because it gives him a unique opportunity to connect with and support patients and families and to be a part of one of the most significant events in their lives. One of the parts of his job that he is proudest of is the way UCLA’s team pushes the boundaries in the science of transplantation. UCLA is one of the few transplant centers in the country to undertake multivisceral transplants and takes risks on transplanting patients that many other transplant centers will not. This work has only been possible because of the close work of the members of the multi-disciplinary team, including both pre and post-transplant coordinators.

Andrew Baird looks forward to being part of and seeing the future of UCLA’s transplant program and helping patients navigate their transplant journey.

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