Thoughts about kidney donation
We've written about kidney donation here a few times lately, most of it stemming from the 16-person, domino transplant completed at Johns Hopkins this month. That transplant began when a man from Virginia offered to donate his kidney to a stranger. A fascinating piece in the most recent issue of The New Yorker, written by Larissa MacFarquhar, asks a terrific question: "What sort of person gives a kidney to a stranger?"
She tells the tale of one man who donated his kidney to a woman he found online, on a site designed to link donors to those in need. When a story about his deed hit the local news, someone called him on the phone in the hospital and "told him that she hoped his remaining kidney would fail quickly and kill him because her husband had been next in line to receive a kidney and (the donor) had given his to someone else." When a story appeared in the local paper, it asked "whether it was fair for him to pick his recipient, choosing who lived and who died."
Another story is of a young woman who donated her kidney to someone she didn't know, enamored with the idea that she could save someone's life. But after the surgery she seemed to regret it in ways, feeling that the recipient wasn't grateful enough to her. Was she really doing it as an altruistic act or was it really about her?
The piece also explores the concept of paying people for their organs, which is illegal.
Dr. Robert Montgomery of Johns Hopkins, who led the record-setting domino transplant, is featured in the New Yorker story. MacFarquhar observes the mustachioed surgeon in the operating room as he removes the kidney from an Essex pastor who donates to someone she will never meet. For Kimberly Brown-Whale, the pastor wiho has spent years doing missionary work overseas, "part of what appealed to her about donating a kidney was the concreteness of it: she knew that she was helping someone and she knew exactly how.
"She thought of herself as being in the helping business, but so much of her work was just talk, talk, talk -- her Sunday sermons, funerals, visting parishioners in the hospital -- that she wondered whether anything she did made any difference."
Comments
Great ccomments! Part of my story was referenced in The New Yorker Magazine piece by Larissa Mac Farquhar. The deceasd organ transplant system as operated by the private government contractor, United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is broken, unfair, and corrupt. Those of us needing human organ transplants must advocate for ourselves in order to live. I was stunned by the number of people who stepped forward to offer me a kidney after I subscribed to matchingdonors.com. I was stunned again when my transplant center rejected my offer to refer potential donors not suitable for me to others waiting for transplants at the center. Sure I was contacted by a few people who wanted money or some other form of payment. However, the vast majority were truly altruistic in their motivation. I remain in contact with several of these wonderfully generous people. My donor, Rob Smitty, of Tennessee and I remain good friends. In fact, he is coming to visit me in Colorado next month. When one gives a gift and expects nothing in return the personal rewards can be great. As always when advocating for ones self in the health care arena you must be vigilant, complete your due diligence, and work at the process. People are good and generous! It is my duty now to 'pay it forward'!
Posted by: Robert F, Hickey, Ph.D. | August 5, 2009 1:18 PM
The choice of giving a kidney, along with the reason, is just that - a personal choice.
Posted by: Carolyn Edwards | August 5, 2009 4:51 PM