John Friedewald, a transplant nephrologist and director of clinical research for Northwestern’s Comprehensive Transplant Center, said that even though the hospital is a big transplant center, they only see non-directed donors (4) like Penrod “a couple of times a year.”
“Oftentimes, they’re either people who have been touched by transplant in some way, right, ‘My friend got a transplant and it was really cool and I wanna donate,’ or … people who are serial blood donors and want to do more,” said Friedewald, who was chairman of the United Network for Organ Sharing UNOS kidney committee when the new allocation policy was passed. “Some people just do that because they think it’s important.”
But a couple of times a year isn’t going to put a dent in the list. “It’s like I tell people, if we didn’t put another person on the list starting today, it would take us eight and a half years to transplant everybody with the current organ supply,” Penrod said. “So how are we ever gonna catch up and do that?”
Dispelling myths will certainly help. Friedewald said Hollywood doesn’t do doctors a whole lot of favors when it comes to sensational stories, and Joe Barrett, who donated a kidney 18 years ago, rattled off a laundry list of wacky comments he’s gotten, from how much the surgery must have hurt to how much it must have cost him to donate.