William Payne, MD

LifeSource operates in a space where science, medicine and humanity intersects.

It is my privilege to serve as Medical Director at LifeSource, the organ procurement organization for the Upper Midwest. 

I co-founded LifeSource along with a small group of surgeons in 1989 and hired Susan Gunderson as the organization’s first Chief Executive Officer. 

I earned my medical degree in 1972 at St. Louis University School of Medicine and completed my surgical residency and transplantation fellowship at the University of Minnesota Hospitals. I became a faculty member at the University of Texas at Houston before returning to join the Minnesota faculty in 1983.   

For 25 years, I served as Director of the Liver Transplant Program at the University of Minnesota and prior serves as Chief of Staff of the University of Minnesota Medical Center. 

I served as president of the United Network for Organ Sharing – the national organ transplantation network and on the Executive Committee of the Association of the Organ Procurement Organizations as the medical advisor. I am a member of many surgical and transplantation societies, including the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, The Transplantation Society, the American Surgical Association and the American College of Surgeons.  

Transplantation is so unique area of surgery – you can’t simply schedule a transplant. Another person must pass away and generously give a gift. It’s a space where science, medicine and humanity intersects.