Hospital cynicism
We have a transplant candidate meeting every Friday morning, where we discuss people on the list, and people who want to get on the list.
People waiting for a liver are in a curious predicament, as are their doctors: only the really sick ones get a liver, b/c it's a rare organ around these parts (there are 4 transplant centers!), so you kind of want your patients to be a little bit sick, but you also want them to be better so they're not too sick to handle a major surgery...
Transplant medicine itself is kind of a curious predicament. For one sick person to live, a healthy person has to die. I try to think of it like, oh, people die anyway, and this way, they can leave a legacy behind. But the fact is someone has to die for someone else to live.
Today, we were talking about one person who is in the hospital this week, who's teetering on the point of just sick enough and too sick for surgery. We were expressing worry that we may have missed the window. The head surgeon said, "What can we do! Would you believe it, in this district, there have been no liver offers. None at all whatsoever. Not even cirrhotic ones."
Someone else replied: "What, even with the snow storm?"
A third person said, "Even with the plane crashing into the Hudson? Oh yeah. They all survived."
And it's not really serious, except it kind of is. In that haha look away shake your head kind of way. Like sexist humor or something.
I tellya, curious predicament, this transplant business.
People waiting for a liver are in a curious predicament, as are their doctors: only the really sick ones get a liver, b/c it's a rare organ around these parts (there are 4 transplant centers!), so you kind of want your patients to be a little bit sick, but you also want them to be better so they're not too sick to handle a major surgery...
Transplant medicine itself is kind of a curious predicament. For one sick person to live, a healthy person has to die. I try to think of it like, oh, people die anyway, and this way, they can leave a legacy behind. But the fact is someone has to die for someone else to live.
Today, we were talking about one person who is in the hospital this week, who's teetering on the point of just sick enough and too sick for surgery. We were expressing worry that we may have missed the window. The head surgeon said, "What can we do! Would you believe it, in this district, there have been no liver offers. None at all whatsoever. Not even cirrhotic ones."
Someone else replied: "What, even with the snow storm?"
A third person said, "Even with the plane crashing into the Hudson? Oh yeah. They all survived."
And it's not really serious, except it kind of is. In that haha look away shake your head kind of way. Like sexist humor or something.
I tellya, curious predicament, this transplant business.
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