A home away from home for transplant patients and families
The Clyde F. Barker Penn Transplant House offers a comforting and affordable refuge for transplant patients and families—with community and hope.
Each time Gary and Susan Rosenbaum walk through the doors of the Clyde F. Barker Penn Transplant House, they’re reminded of what they experienced within those walls: hardship, healing, but ultimately, renewal, through Gary’s journey to receive and recover from a heart transplant at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) in 2015. “Nothing I can say will ever capture what it meant to us,” Susan said. “But we carry it with us every day.”
The Rosenbaums, who live in Florida, still return to the Barker House on occasion, staying there when appointments bring them back to Penn Medicine in Philadelphia.
Just steps from HUP in West Philadelphia, the transplant house, along Spruce Street, is a place built for life’s most fragile moments. It offers a refuge for patients—and families of patients—taking the sometimes-unpredictable journey through organ transplant. In its communal kitchens, patients’ families trade recipes and resilience. In its quiet rooms, they rest their bodies. Since its opening in 2011, the transplant house has offered transplant patients and families a community that understands both the relentless demands of treatment and the emotional weight that comes with it.
The house bears the name of Clyde F. Barker, MD, the pioneering Penn surgeon who performed the Penn’s first kidney transplant in 1966 and founded the Penn Transplant Institute (PTI).
His groundbreaking contributions helped shape the modern era of transplantation. Barker passed away on October 2, 2025, but the legacy he built continues to live both inside the walls of the home that carries his name, and at HUP, where PTI is one of the nation’s most active, comprehensive multi-organ transplant centers. As of 2026, when PTI is celebrating its 60th anniversary, its teams have performed nearly 7,700 kidney and 4,000 liver transplants, along with thousands of heart, lung, and pancreas transplants. Recent innovations have led to upper limb and uterus transplants, including those which have led to the birth of eight healthy babies.
Patients come here from far away because of PTI’s experience with complex, high-risk cases that many other centers are not equipped to handle. Often times, however, that meant that patients and families needed to shoulder the burden of a hotel room, or find other accommodation during their treatments or recovery. To address this need, Abraham (Avi) Shaked, MD, PhD, transplant surgeon and longtime director of PTI, championed creating a vital “home away from home” for the many families who travel to Penn Medicine in Philadelphia for care.
Relieving the financial burden for transplant patients and families
Celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2026, the Penn Transplant House has remained a steadfast sanctuary, offering rooms at a modest $60 per night; a price that has remained unchanged since the day it opened. Whether it be a one-night stay for someone who traveled from out of town for an appointment, a months-long stay for someone recovering from a procedure, or intermittent visits for many post-transplant follow up appointments, the Penn Transplant House provides stability, comfort, and compassion at a time when so much feels uncertain.
A cornerstone of the Penn Transplant House is its commitment to ensuring no family is turned away due to financial hardship. The House has long supported the cost of stays for families who otherwise could not afford it. This mission, fueled by philanthropy, was recently strengthened by the generosity of a $1 million endowment from longtime supporter Suzanne Biesecker. Her gift can fund an additional 650 room-nights every year, ensuring even more families can access lifesaving medical care without the steep cost of temporary housing beyond their means.
For Biesecker, the cause is deeply personal. Her granddaughter received a liver transplant in 2013, years after she was diagnosed as an infant with biliary atresia—a rare, serious liver disease that blocks bile ducts and often requires surgery and eventual transplant. Through her generosity, Biesecker is turning her family’s journey into lasting relief for hundreds of families navigating transplant care. It is her hope that her gift inspires others to give, helping to create a future where no family has to worry about paying to stay at the Penn Transplant House.
Gary and Susan's journey
For Gary and Susan Rosenbaum, the Penn Transplant House wasn’t simply a place to stay. It was a lifeline.
The Rosenbaums built their life together in Maryland, where Gary worked in retail and later did contract work for the Maryland Department of Transportation at BWI Airport. When Gary began experiencing heart issues around 2009, their lives changed abruptly. Active, healthy, and just 56, he was diagnosed with idiopathic cardiomyopathy with no clear cause and—at the time— no implantable device to help manage it.
“We were blindsided,” Susan recalled. “There was no family history. It came out of the clear blue sky.”
Over the next several years, they made the medical rounds between Washington Hospital Center, Johns Hopkins, and specialists in Florida after their retirement there. By the summer of 2015, Gary’s condition worsened, and his doctors in Florida had recommended he see experts at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia to start preparing for a heart transplant. He’d once been told he might need a transplant within five years; almost exactly five years later, the moment had arrived.
Traveling back and forth between Florida and Philadelphia for evaluation was not only exhausting, but costly. Airfare, hotels, meals all made for a pricey trip to Philadelphia with each of Gary’s appointments. “It was a social worker who told us about the transplant house,” Gary said. “We were staying in local hotels, juggling flights, and then we learned about the Penn Transplant House. It was close to the hospital, more intimate, the right fit.”
Then, one appointment that they thought would be another simple evaluation turned into a crisis: Gary was too sick to return home to Florida. Susan rushed back to Florida briefly to make arrangements for their dog and bring her to their daughter, before returning to Philadelphia for what would become a long and uncertain wait while Gary remained in the hospital waiting for the heart transplant he now more acutely needed.
“[Staying at the Penn Transplant House] was a life saver for me,” Susan said. “There were only 12 rooms, so it felt like a family. I’m still in touch with some of the people we stayed with. Some nights you came home in tears. Other days, you shared meals. The staff understood what you were going through. It was the support I didn’t even know I needed.”
Gary would spend 65 days in the hospital, ultimately receiving his heart transplant on Christmas Day, 2015. After discharge, he stayed at the Penn Transplant House to begin therapy and regain strength. The Rosenbaums’ grown daughter used the house, too, staying several nights to be closer to her parents during the most critical post-surgical days.
“There are not words for the support it gave me,” Susan said. “Nothing could have made the experience easy, but the Penn Transplant House made it survivable.”
A life renewed
Today Gary and Susan give back in every way they can. They donated a treadmill to the transplant house, sponsored a room in memory of Gary’s heart donor, and make annual contributions to help with the family support fund and the operation of the Transplant House.
Back in Florida, Gary volunteers for LifeLink, the state’s organ procurement organization, speaking with transplant candidates and their families. He meets with doctors and staff at Tampa General to share a patient’s perspective and inspire hope in others.
He also discovered a passion he never expected: the Transplant Games. “I got hooked,” he said. A cyclist, he has competed in U.S. and International Transplant Games—from Denver to Perth to Newcastle. Even a serious bike accident two years ago, requiring back surgery, couldn’t keep him away; he’s back on the bike and preparing for the next U.S. Games this summer.
Gary is now 73. He and Susan, who will celebrate 51 years of marriage in May, travel in their RV, take river cruises, and savor every milestone.
“We take advantage of every moment we have now,” Susan said.