One of the questions I'm often asked is,"How has your job as Medical
Researcher of Grey's Anatomy changed your attitudes toward medicine."
The answer is, when I renewed my driver's license this time, I signed
up to be an organ donor. One thing Grey's Anatomy (and Denny Duquette)
has taught me is there just aren't enough organs from deceased donors
to go around. In 1954, doctors began performing living organ
transplants when a living person donates a kidney or part of their
liver to a loved one who is in need of an organ. While living organ
donation hasn't solved the organ shortage, it has definitely helped
close the gap. It's also created an additional problem, what if someone
in your life is generous enough to give you a kidney but their kidney
doesn't match? In episode 505, There's No"I" in Team, Dr. Miranda
Bailey creates an innovative program that provides an answer to that...
The Domino Kidney Transplant.
You know how when you stand up dominos in a pattern and knock one over
all of the dominoes fall over in quick succession? That's just what
Bailey did with the domino kidney transplants. She found someone who
needs a kidney and had someone in his or her life who was not a match,
but was willing to give up a kidney to help. Bailey found five other
donor/recipient pairs in this same situation and she paired them up one
by one, until there were five recipients and six donors who matched and
are ready to go. What happened to the sixth kidney?
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) has developed a system of
organ allocation that is fair. Well, as fair as it can be when dealing
with something as fundamentally unfair as life-threatening illness. In
cases of directed donation (like if your sister gives you a kidney) the
ethics is straightforward. The donor has the right to decide who she
gifts her organ to. But, as soon as a licensed transplant center gets
involved with the pairing process, the ethics becomes more difficult.
The rules say the person at the top of the list gets the next kidney.
Doctors don't allocate organs. UNOS does. Yet, Bailey knows six people
who are willing to donate organs in order for their loved ones to
receive the organs. With such a grave organ shortage it seems a shame
not to take them up on their generosity. So, this problem is solved
when one of the kidneys is given to the person at the top of the list.
They become the sixth recipient.
Who is the sixth donor? Where did they come from? Typically the sixth
donor is what is called an altruistic donor. Someone who wants to
donate an organ just to be generous. This altruistic donor is actually
the first domino that trips the chain reaction, because without the
unpaired kidney there would be no kidney to pair with the person at the
top of UNOS's list.
Now for the question that everyone wants answered: Would the kidney
that Meredith dropped really be used? I'll answer that question with a
question. Now that you know how rare a good kidney is and how much work
goes into pairing kidneys and recipients what do you think?
For more information on Kidney Transplants or becoming an organ donor
go to: www.donatelife.net
