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Offline Clark

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Finding Organ Donors Concealed in Plain Sight
« on: May 18, 2016, 11:54:27 AM »
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/opinion/finding-organ-donors-concealed-in-plain-sight.html?_r=1


The Opinion Pages
Finding Organ Donors Concealed in Plain Sight
David Bornstein
FIXES MAY 17, 2016

Second of two articles.

Last June, after it became clear that their 3-month-old son, Nathan, needed a liver transplant, Rob and Christina Whitehead of Mokena, Ill., created a Facebook page to tell his story. Word spread quickly. “More than a hundred people called our donor hotline,” recalled Talia B. Baker, director of the Living Donor Liver Transplant program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
In August, Nathan received a transplant. He’s had some complications, but nine months later, videos show him cruising happily with his walker.
Nathan’s case is not unique. “There have been several instances where people have posted a need for an organ for a baby or an adult and we’ve had a massive outpouring,” Baker said.
Only one of the candidates ended up donating, of course. That left Baker wondering whether the others would be willing to give to someone else. So she asked them. “Almost 100 percent said yes,” she said.
Now she is working with Organize (a group I reported on in my last column) to develop a database of living organ donors who are interested in helping strangers. “It needs to be done systematically, ethically and equitably,” Baker cautions.


When living donors are asked how the decision to donate has influenced their lives, more than 80 percent say they feel a greater sense of self-worth, and almost half say they appreciate life more, LaPointe Rudow reports. Not everyone has a positive experience, however. Donors who experience complications, or whose recipients fare poorly, can feel anger or regret. And there are, of course, health risks. Kidney donation is done laparoscopically, and is far less invasive than in the past, but it’s still major surgery.


Unrelated directed kidney donor in 2003, recipient and I both well.
620 time blood and platelet donor since 1976 and still giving!
Elected to the OPTN/UNOS Boards of Directors & Executive, Kidney Transplantation, and Ad Hoc Public Solicitation of Organ Donors Committees, 2005-2011
Proud grandpa!

 

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