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Author Topic: Meeting with transplant psychiatrist led to an exploration of altruism  (Read 2173 times)

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http://thechronicleherald.ca/books/193528-meeting-with-transplant-psychiatrist-led-to-an-exploration-of-altruism

Meeting with transplant psychiatrist led to an exploration of altruism
BY MEGAN POWER

Is there such a thing as pure kindness?
Among the lower animals, altruism is common.

Vampire bats regurgitate blood for members of their group. A few species of birds, along with meerkats, babysit for one another. Whales stay with wounded members of their pod. Vervet monkeys call out to warn of predators (although, in doing so, they draw attention to themselves and increase their own chance of being attacked). Ants, wasps, bees and termites spend their lives caring for the queen.

Darwin called altruism in the animal kingdom the “one special difficulty, which at first appeared to me to be insuperable, and actually fatal to the whole theory” (On the Origin of Species, 1859, p.236). He posited that kindness to others benefits the survival of the group, labelling it “kin selection.”

Toronto author Cynthia Holz explores human altruism in her novel Benevolence, now out in paperback by Vintage Canada, in which an organ transplant psychiatrist struggles to evaluate the mental and emotional well-being of a potential donor.

Holz says the book was inspired by a chance meeting she had with a real-life organ-transplant psychiatrist, Dr. David J. Dixon, formerly of Toronto General Hospital.

“I was out having dinner with a friend and he walked in,” Holz said in a phone interview from her home in Toronto. “My friend, who knew him, waved him over and he sat down and joined us. I asked what his job was and he said, ‘Organ transplant psychiatrist.’

“After we spoke awhile, I asked, ‘So you’re making life-and-death decisions every day?’”

At the time of their meeting, Holz says, she was in between novels.

She describes having “a heightened awareness of everything” during the creative lull and, curious and compelled to learn more, she asked to interview him at his home.

Dixon agreed.

“I spent many hours interviewing him,” she says. “Then many hours transcribing — which wasn’t fun, it was a lot of grunt work — without knowing where I was going with all of this.

“Initially, I just wanted to find out more about his job.”

In Benevolence, Dr. Ben Wasserman is assigned a donor named Arthur Rae, who is moved to give a kidney to his neighbour, Carol.

Wasserman’s job is to ensure Arthur has no underlying motives.

Is his kindness propelled by a wish for monetary reward? Is he secretly in love with Carol? Does he have low self-esteem? Any of these issues can prompt a rejection by the transplant committee.

Ben’s conversations with Arthur are the book’s crowning glory, partly because the dialogue is written with such intensity and partly because it’s highly informative; rarely are non-medical personnel privy to this kind of insider’s look at the scrutiny potential donors undergo.

Is benevolence ever truly genuine? the books asks. Is there such a thing as pure, unselfish kindness?

“I posted that very question to an online chat group of psychiatrists,” Holz says. “The overwhelming response was that there is no such thing as pure altruism.”

But a trip to Findhorn, an ecological and spiritual community in northern Scotland, contradicted this view.

“Everybody I met there believed in goodness and altruism and spirituality,” she says.

Holz says she is interested in the philosophical puzzle that altruism poses. “My question is, does it denigrate the gift if Arthur had another motive? A gift is still a gift. Any human being has a hugely complex psychological history, and if we pick at it, we can always find a reason other than altruism for their generosity.

“I’m saying that different answers are possible. I tend to consider many points of view around questions like this. I hope the book shows that.”

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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