Donor Diaries
Donor Diaries is a podcast that delves into the beauty and complexity of living organ donation. Tune in to hear extraordinary stories of people who choose to share their organs and give the gift of life. The world of kidney and organ donation is a powerful testament to kindness, love, and the human spirit.
With over 90,000 individuals on the kidney transplant waitlist and about 13 people dying each day while waiting, the urgency is real. One in three Americans is at risk for chronic kidney disease, and one in nine already suffers from it, often unknowingly.
Donor Diaries offers unfiltered narratives from living donors and candid insights from transplant experts, aiming to elevate the conversation around organ donation. Our goal is to bring this crucial issue to the forefront, so no patient has to wait in vain or suffer needlessly.
Donor Diaries
Donor Disincentives, with Martha Gershun | EP 15
In 2018 Martha donated a kidney to a woman she read about in the newspaper. She co-authored a book, Kidney to Share, published by Cornell University Press, about that experience and has given presentations at more than 35 transplant clinics, medical schools, and bioethics centers on her experience as a living kidney donor.
In today’s episode, we discuss donor disincentives- the factors that can make it difficult for somebody to donate a kidney, even though they may really want to. Martha breaks these disincentives into 3 categories: logistics, psychosocial and financial. The top 3 disincentives facing donors are the cost of travel and lodging associated with donation, loss of income while recovering from surgery, and cost of home and/or dependent care during the donor’s recovery.
Martha speaks candidly about her donation experience and how some of these disincentives made it difficult to donate a kidney. She also discusses how the disincentives she experienced may disproportionately affect a donor with a different background than her.
About Martha:
Martha Gershun is a nonprofit consultant, writer, and community volunteer with over 40 years of leadership experience in Fortune 500 corporations, start-up ventures, and non-profit organizations. Gershun graduated with a B.A. cum laude from Harvard University and holds an M.B.A. with first year honors from the Harvard Business School, where she studied marketing, service operations, and customer experience. She earned a graduate diploma in Economics from the University of Stirling, Scotland, where she was a Rotary International Fellow.
References
Removing Disincentives to Kidney Donation
Kidney to Share
Martha Gershun
