Organ Donors Give 1he Gift of Life - WSJ

6f11i2016

THE WAIL STREET JOURNAL.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation.f"eady copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit
http://Www.djreprlnts.com.
http://Www.wsj.com/articles/organ-donors.give-the.gift-ofife-1456698570

U.S. I NEW YORK I URBAN GARDNER

Organ Donors Give the Gift of Life

Organ transplants save lives, but New York state lags the nation in percentage of residents
who are donors

Cathy Murphy in January. She received a liver transplant in November from a woman who was 93 years old. PHOTO:

CATHY MURPHY

By

RALPH GARDNER JR.

Feb. 28, 2016 5:29 p.m. ET
The message on Cathy Murphy's answering machine was succinct, to say the least. "Dr.
Samstein here. Looking for Cathy Murphy. I have a liver."
Ms. Murphy, 61 years old, suffered from severe cirrhosis after contracting hepatitis and
had been waiting for a liver transplant for more than two years.
What she didn't know at that moment in early November, as her family rushed to return
the phone call from her physician, Benjamin Samstein, chief of liver transplantation and
hepatobiliary surgery at NewYork-PresbyterianfWeill Cornell Medical Center, was that
she was about to receive the oldest liver ever transplanted in the U.S. Her donor was 93
http://www.wsj.com/articles/orgeo-donors-give-the-gift-of-1ife-1456698570

1/6

6f11i2016

Organ Donors Give 1he Gift of Life - WSJ

years old.
"It doesn't matter the age, just so long as the liver is in good condition," she explained by
phone from her home in Milford, Pa.
Unlike other organs, such as the heart and kidneys, which decline over time, a healthy
liver has remarkable longevity. "It's almost unheard of for people in their 80s and 90s to
develop liver failure not related to alcohol or viral hepatitis," Dr. Samstein said. "To me,
a 93-year-old liver has decades of life left in it."

Benjamin Samstein, chief of liver transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Camell Medical
Center. PHOTO: JOHN TAGGART FDR THE WALL STREET

He previously performed liver transplants from donors almost that old. "I didn't know
at the time it was the oldest organ transplanted," he added. nThe difference between 93
and 92, or 91, didn't come across to me that night."
The organ had been medically evaluated and delivered to the hospital by LiveOnNY, one
of 58 Organ Procurement Organizations, or OPOs, nationally and the one dedicated to
the New York metropolitan area.
LiveOnNY's office overlooking the Hudson River on West 34th Street (though the fast
rising Hudson Yards development is shortly to block the view) includes a donor center
where staffers wait to jump into action, matching donors and recipients, when word
arrives of an organ that has become available.
There's also a laboratory where kidneys are processed before continuing on their
lifesavingjourney. Organs such as hearts and livers, because of their greater urgency,
travel directly from the donor's operating room to the transplant hospital.
When I visited a kidney had just arrived from Kentucky and was on its way to
http://www.wsj.com/articleslorgeo-donors-give-the-gift-of-1ife.1456698570

216

Organ Donors Give the Gift of Life - WSJ

6111/2016

MORE URBAN GARDNER COLUMNS

Locating a Cemetery and a Link to the Past (http://www.wsj.com/articles/locating-a-cemetery-and-a-link-to

the-past-1465380180) June 8, 2016

Re-Laying Floors, Restoring Homes (http://www.wsj.com/articles/re-laying-floors-restoring-homes1465251282) June 6, 2016

Raising the Beds, With Professional Assistance (http://www.wsj.com/articles/raising-the-beds-with

professional-assistance-1465170157) June 5, 2016

Where Burgers, 'Bling' and Old Elms Align (http://www.wsj.com/articles/where-burgers-bling-and-old-elms

align-1464828033) June 1, 2016

Magazine Photos Give a New Sense of African-American Lives (http://www.wsj.com/articles/magazine

photos-g ive-a-new-sen seof-african-american-lives-1464744309) May 31, 2016

Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. "He's checking the anatomy," Helen Irving,
LiveOnNY's CEO and a former critical-care nurse, explained; we watched through the
laboratory window while Abigo Cuenca, a preservationist, examined the organ. "He'll
flush the kidney, make sure the arteries and blood vessels are all open," Ms. Irving said.

'Thefact that you can donate and give life into your 90s is something we need to
communicate. '
-Dr. Benjamin Samstein

There was no time to waste before the organ was loaded into a kidney preservation
pump, a machine that would continue to flush the kidney with cold water as it headed to
Montefiore Hospital by ambulance.
The machine is also equipped with GPS so that the surgeon awaiting its arrival can track
its progress online through often uncooperative New York City traffic.
This kidney had been removed from its donor 39 hours earlier, a substantial amount of
time to be outside a body.
Ms. Irving and Amy Friedman, LiveOn's medical director, told me that I was fortunate to
see an organ in transit since the region suffers from an acute shortage of organ
donations.
New York ranks dead last out of the 50 states when it comes to the percentage of
residents registered as organ donors, according to LiveOnNY. Dr. Samstein said that at
http://www.wsj.com/articleslorgan-donors-give-th&-gift-of-life-1456698570

316

6f11i2016

Organ Donors Give 1he Gift of Life - WSJ

his

Cathy Murphy and her husband, Jeff Murphy, shorUy after her November 2015 liver transplant PHOTO: TARA SEVEK

hospital last year about 1,100 people died, and approximately 10 of them were organ
donors. "We can do better," he said.
"We exist but for a brief moment in the cycle of life," Dr. Samstein added. "The fact that
you can donate and give life into your 90s is something we need to communicate."
With the help of a group of New York real-estate professionals known as "Donate Eight"
(so named because it's possible for one registered individual to donate up to eight
organs), the LiveOnNY Foundation was created last month to raise awareness about the
lifesaving potential people possess.
Ms. Murphy, now with a new liver, is well on the road to recovery. She'd been to the
beauty parlor for the first time in months, and she and her husband were preparing for a
trip to Florida.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

Have something to say about an article in Greater New York? Email us, along with
your contact information, at gnyltrs@wsj.com. Letters will be edited for brevity and
clarity. Please include your city and state.

"I feel amazing," she said, while acknowledging she still has "a long road ahead of me."
"We're going to SeaWorld in Orlando," she added. "We're going to go on a wild boar hunt.
How crazy is that?"
One bit of business remains, however. They plan to write a letter to the family of their
donor. ''We're really looking forward to thanking them," Ms. Murphy said. "They gave
http://www.wsj.com/articleslorgeo-donors-give-the-gift-of-1ife-1456698570

416

6111/2016

Organ Donors Give the Gift of Life - WSJ

me a gift there's no words for. I would like them to know they made a lot of people
happy."

-ralph.gardner@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:

Cathy Murphy received a liver transplant in November from a woman who was 93 years
old. A photo caption accompanying an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated
the donor was a man. Also, a group of New York real-estate professionals that increases
organ donation awareness and registration is known as "Donate Eight," not "Donate 8"
as incorrectly stated in an earlier version of this article. (Feb.

http://www.wsj.can/articles/organ-donors-give-the-gift-of-life.1456698570

29, 2016)

516