Kidney Blogging Cont'd
When Paul Wagner read my friend Sally Satel's NYT article about her Internet search for a kidney donor, he went to MatchingDonors.com and found out about a fellow Philadelphian in desperate need of a kidney. On Valentine's Day, he donated his left kidney to Gail Tomas, saving her life. The story, as reported by the local NBC affiliate, is here.
Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philly has an enlightened policy that encourages such matches (unlike some places). From the NBC 10 report:
"With a live donor, we don't preserve the organs for a long time and that is the main reason why the organ lives longer. It's been demonstrated that the survival of the patient and the organ is about 10 percent higher than the patient that receives a cadaver organ," said Dr. Cataldo Doria, a transplant surgeon.