News

The United Network for Organ Sharing, UNOS, the non-profit organization responsible for allocating donor organs to patients waiting for transplantation, is proposing a new system to determine how kidneys are distributed. If approved during a vote in the spring of 2013, this proposal will represent the first major overhaul of the national kidney allocation system in 25 years.

Organ donation is hot stuff! Slogans and advertising yell, "Organs save lives! Register as a donor now!" But surveys show that the majority of people who choose not to be donors have either not thought about the question or are deterred by uncertainty as to what the process means for them.

In this opinion article, Arundi Mahendran, MBBS, MSc, challenges readers to engage in a different kind of discussion about organ donation.

In an unprecedented organ transplant chain at NYPH and ten other hospitals across the U.S., thirty patients with renal failure received a new kidney in the largest organ swap ever performed. The intricately coordinated exchange enabled more recipients to have transplants, and to receive better matched organs, than if they had remained on the organ wait list — or if they had received transplants directly from their loved ones.

In the following video, Dr. Lloyd Ratner addresses some common questions and concerns about the kidney donation and transplantation process.