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
German Kidney Exchange: Crossing Oceans to Give the Gift of Life | EP 28
What would compel an American living in Germany to navigate a labyrinth of legal and cultural barriers to donate a kidney to a stranger? Join us as we uncover the incredible story of Will Johnson, whose altruistic journey sheds light on the stark contrasts between organ donation practices in the US and Germany. In this episode, recorded in a charming house near Munich, we reveal Germany's current regulations surrounding kidney exchange and the low rates of living donations that Will encountered in his quest to give the gift of life.
Embark on a transatlantic journey with us as we explore the emotional and logistical hurdles Will faced, from initial inspiration to the surprising medical discoveries along the way. Hear about the practical steps of coordinating evaluations across borders, and the varied reactions from peers and workplaces in Germany. Through Will's story, we gain a deeper understanding of the personal sacrifices and triumphs that come with kidney donation, highlighting the incredible impact of what happens when we choose to love a stranger.
Will shares: “I’ve been the recipient of much kindness and generosity throughout my life and have been blessed with good health. It felt like the right time to give back. When I learned about altruistic kidney donation, I knew without a doubt this was the perfect opportunity to do something meaningful.”
Living Kidney Donation in Germany
Global Observatory on Donation
From Germany to America: A Living Kidney Donor Story | National Kidney Foundation
Facts and myths about altruistic organ donation | Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation | Oxford Academic
Market Design Blog | Al Roth
Market Design Blog (second article) | Al Roth
Berlin Kidney Exchange Article
Living Organ Donation Donor Rate Statistics
Connect with Laurie Lee
GiftWorks
Welcome to Donor Diaries, a podcast that explores how people are changing lives through the powerful act of living donation. Tune in to discover how kindness, love and simple acts of giving are transforming lives every day. Welcome back. This is your host, lori Lee. Today's episode features an inspiring story from Will Johnson, an American non-directed kidney donor who's a resident of Germany. Will was faced with legal obstacles that initially prevented him from donating a kidney to a stranger. His remarkable journey sheds light on the challenges and triumphs of navigating the legal landscape of organ donation abroad.
Speaker 1:Will and I are actually in Germany right now, which, I'm pretty sure, officially makes this an international podcast. We've been exploring Germany's evolving kidney exchange system via email over the past month, and it's actually proven to be a really interesting time to record this podcast, because the landscape is changing so quickly and also because I don't read German. As you can imagine, in many economically advanced and progressive countries, organ exchange practices are at the forefront of medical innovations, but Germany isn't among these countries. Germans have so many more limitations than Americans when it comes to living donation. This is due to concerns about potential risks associated with kidney exchange, fear of organ trafficking and fear of psychological pressure on donors.
Speaker 1:Fortunately, germany is on the verge of implementing a new model designed to improve match rates and reduce waiting times through innovative mechanisms that we in the US. A new model designed to improve match rates and reduce waiting times through innovative mechanisms that we in the US are totally accustomed to, like domino chains. They're also trying to loosen some strict rules they currently have regarding paired exchange. Join us as we delve into how these advancements are set to transform the kidney donation process in Germany and hear from Will about his impactful cross-border donation. All right, we're recording, okay.
Speaker 1:And we're going to hear sounds of Germany in the background, because I already hear them. Awesome, should we start with this sound?
Speaker 2:Yes, my favorite sound in Germany Cheers Cheers. You know what they say in Germany Prost, prost, cheers, cheers, you know?
Speaker 1:what they say in Germany Prost Good stuff. Yes, well, welcome to Donor Diaries.
Speaker 2:Thank you so excited to have you here. Good to be here.
Speaker 1:So you want to tell them where we are right now.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're in a really charming house just outside of Munich, a couple hours from where I live in Stuttgart. It's a beautiful, sunny day.
Speaker 1:Bavarian Alps, not too far from here, right, right, do you want to share how you and I came to know each other, to be having a beer together? Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if it was around May, late April, Anyway, I found out about a podcast that talked about organ transplant and organ donation. And it just happened to be your podcast and I listened to it a few times and really liked it and it kind of resonated with me. Having donated myself, I was interested in what other people experienced, but I didn't have any way of talking to anybody about it. So I stumbled across your podcast, really liked it and just thought you should know that people were enjoying it.
Speaker 1:And I don't have a lot of clicks in Germany, but I do have some, so I'm guessing all of my listeners are here with us right now in Germany. Probably. We all fit in this one room we do, but to explain what you mean when you say that you don't have anyone here to talk about your experience with living donation.
Speaker 2:First, of all. Actually, I know one person who donated a kidney to his cousin many years ago, but I certainly don't know anyone in Germany who's done it. It just doesn't seem like a very big thing in Germany living donation. If you bring up the subject of donating organs, people think immediately of deceased donation and the way in the US you might have on your driver's license something saying that you're an organ donor. There's sort of a card like that here. So I think when you hear organ donation over here, that's kind of what you think of.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit about deceased donation over here.
Speaker 2:In Germany. If you want to be an organ donor when you die, you have to sign up for that. You register somewhere, they send you a card and you carry it with you. It says you're an organ donor. You register somewhere, they send you a card and you carry it with you. It says you're an organ donor. If you don't want to, you don't have to do anything. But a lot of people they don't think this is the right approach to take that a lot of people might be interested, they might be interested in donating, but they just don't have the time. They don't get around to filling out a card or applying for it. So what you have is not that many, not a high percentage of donors. I think I read an article somewhere or listened to a podcast here that said maybe 81% of the people here are interested in donating after death, but only 44% have officially registered to do that. So that's quite a discrepancy.
Speaker 1:yeah and um it's actually super similar in the us our numbers are really similar to the number of people who say yes, it's the right thing to do, versus the number of people who actually sign their driver's license some people here who are disappointed in that would rather see a higher rate.
Speaker 2:They point to spain. In spain they have some opt-out solution. So basically, when you die they will use your organs, unless you explicitly say that you don't want that. And there's some Germans here who think they should introduce that system here and that the burden should be on you if you don't want to donate to opt-out. That's been put to vote a few times but it's never gotten through Officially. You still have to opt in.
Speaker 1:So people who are getting kidneys here are getting almost exclusively deceased donor kidneys right. So your system relies on deceased donors.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and you asked before about the landscape here. Living donation is possible, but it's pretty restricted compared to the way it is in the US and basically whoever you donate to has to be a family member. They're willing to make an exception if you prove that you have a strong personal relationship with someone, but for practical purposes it's pretty much limited to family right now. There aren't a whole lot of donations, a lot of living donations happening here.
Speaker 1:So if you need a kidney, you have to not just find somebody who's willing and able to donate, you have to find somebody who is a match to you. Yeah, and the chance of that is low.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, yes, so that's quite different here and it just so happens there's a woman here who's sort of tried to introduce that concept here and, as I told you before the requirement the German law requires that if you're not family, you have to have a close relationship with someone. So this woman her name is Susanna Reitmeyer. She's very interested in this because her daughter needed the kidney transplant and she got her first one from her father and then, about 20 years later, when she was in her early 30s, it failed and she needed a second one and her family didn't know anyone here who could donate. Actually, they had an aunt who was willing to donate, but it just wasn't a match. So they ended up going to Spain to do this and they were part of a six person kidney chain there.
Speaker 2:Anyway, susanna was quite frustrated with the state of affairs in Germany, so she decided to lobby for better rules in that regard, and so she works together with a woman who's a mathematician and they try to match donors with recipients over here. But even if they find a match, it's not enough because they still have to meet this criterion of being having a close personal relationship. So she finds pairs who are willing to donate and sort of introduces them and they sort of take it from there and do things together, have some activities together, and the idea is that at some point they can satisfy this requirement of being having a close personal relationship so she's kind of got like a dating service for people who need kidneys right and how has that worked out for her?
Speaker 1:I, is she successful in finding? Helping people make a paired exchange.
Speaker 2:Yes, she has been. I mean, I think she's been doing this for years, or got the ball rolling seven or eight years ago, but since 2020, she's helped facilitate four successful paired exchanges and there are three other pairs right now who are in the evaluation stage. So, I mean, these are people whose lives were transformed by her efforts and that's a good thing. But she's a great advocate and I talked to her recently and she's very hopeful that the law in Germany will change so that this will no longer be necessary this sort of matchmaking role that she has.
Speaker 1:I mean, why doesn't somebody just make an app for that? I mean, a dating app is relatively simple. It's been done before. It's a business model that works to bring people together based on certain attributes. Why don't you think Germany has a dating app for this yet?
Speaker 2:That's a good question you should make one. Yeah Well, if I knew what I was doing with computers I would. But they seem to take quite a cautious approach and I think once this type of donation is allowed and the rules are loosened a bit, I think you'll see more creativity in that way. But for now it's very, very much by the book and I think Susanna was quite frustrated with the slow progress. So hopefully that's something that will change.
Speaker 1:Wow. What questions does the transplant center ask to people who want to do a paired exchange to determine one way or another if they know each other well enough?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. I think the main thing is just they want to know if they've been hanging out and if they've been doing stuff together. But still, I know they can say no, they can say we're not convinced that you know each other well enough, but it just, yeah, it seems kind of silly at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:I think there's actually advantages to not knowing who your recipient is. There's less baggage. There's less potential for conflict.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely Absolutely. That's a good point. When I spoke with Susanna about this, she said that if you can be matched to someone who's really appropriate, often that kidney will work better for you than it would if you got it from a family member. You can cast a net that's wide enough. You can find someone whose kidney matches even better than maybe your own mother or your brother or your cousin. That's something that was new to me. That's a very good point to take into consideration.
Speaker 1:So when we think about countries who are doing well with transplant, they're often developed countries with money right, and so I was wondering where Germany would fall on that, and I was surprised to learn that Turkey, saudi Arabia, israel and the Netherlands are all doing living organ donation at a higher rate than the United States. The United States is fifth in the world. This list goes all the way through, like more than a dozen countries, and Germany's not here. Like Germany doesn't make the list anywhere. So how long have you lived here, will?
Speaker 2:About 28 years Okay.
Speaker 1:So you're essentially German, and they lost out on your kidney.
Speaker 2:They sure did.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit about how kidney donation came onto your radar and what's happened to your story.
Speaker 2:A few years ago I started to get interested in ways to help people, maybe altruistically often it's donations and things like that and somehow I stumbled across this in an article or a podcast, that you could literally give a kidney to a stranger. And I did a double take when I heard that, and the more I looked into it, the more it appealed to me and I knew we had two kidneys, but I didn't know we only need one generally, and so that was kind of interesting to know. Hey, you can donate a kidney and still live a normal life. But pretty quickly I found out, you know, like I wouldn't be able to do it in Germany. I found out that it had to be a relative or someone very close to me. I didn't know anyone.
Speaker 1:Where'd you get that info? Was it like on a transplant website?
Speaker 2:It's actually on it's in the law. So I looked up the law. The reference was made to this provision and it's in the law. So I looked up the law, the reference was made to this provision and it's pretty clear there. So then I kind of thought, you know, maybe I can do this in the US Germany I have six weeks a year vacation here. Maybe somehow I can I could, you know, work it out and do it. So I contacted the National Kendi Foundation in the US and found out that there was a transplant center pretty close to where my parents live, just outside of Portland, oregon, and there was a transplant center in Portland. So I sort of thought like, hey, wouldn't that be neat if I could do this and do this at home and have my parents kind of take care of me and help nurse me back to health. So yeah, that's how it kind of that's my my plan got started.
Speaker 1:So were you like mom and dad, I'm coming for a month. Yeah, you're going to have to feed me in bed, yeah pretty much they were excited.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was still, it still seemed kind of like a dream to me and I just I didn't want to get too excited. I just thought like, ah, maybe this won't really happen. This would be too good to be true. But anyway, it was something I started to focus on.
Speaker 1:Just for context. How did you end up in Germany in the first place? What are you? 50-ish, yes, so you've been here since you were almost 30 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back in 1990, 91, my parents, we hosted a German exchange student.
Speaker 1:He was a great young man.
Speaker 2:A couple of years later I visited him. He lived in Hamburg and I really liked it over here and so that was kind of in my mind and I studied philosophy in college, which I really liked, but it's not always the easiest thing to study if you want to get a job.
Speaker 1:I have a wildlife biology degree. I don't know what you're talking about Okay, good.
Speaker 2:So anyhow, when I was finished with my studies I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do and my brother told me that I could actually teach English over here without being able to speak German. So that kind of appealed to me. I thought, hey, that'd be fun. I could maybe learn German then just sort of broaden my horizons. So I decided to do that and I ended up getting a job as an English teacher at a language school in early 1996 and really thought I would just stay a couple of years and then go back home. And two years turned into five years and that turned into 10 years and at some point I started working as a translator.
Speaker 1:So going back. So you figured out quickly that it was illegal for you to donate your kidney.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So your next step was figure out if you could do it in the US. You contacted the National Kidney Foundation and you told me you went through a good education program.
Speaker 2:Right, they had some videos that I watched and it kind of informed me a little bit about the process and what they're looking for and how it works. That was good. And then when I was done with that, someone emailed me out of the blue, sort of like my mentor. She donated herself and encouraged me to ask questions, just kind of asked me about myself and what my motivation was, which was nice, because then I had someone who had kind of been through it and who so I could ask questions and she had told me that she donated a kidney to her cousin and it was about it was about 10 years ago and she was doing great and her cousin was doing great and that just that encouraged me and it just sort of reinforced my idea that I wanted to do this.
Speaker 2:And it was good to hear from someone who had had such a positive experience.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. And then what did your evaluation look like? I mean, is that something you could do remotely and get your you know medical tests faxed over there, or something?
Speaker 2:Okay. So at some point they were going to need to see me like in the U? S. But the preliminary stuff, they said it'd be okay, this transplant center I kind of worked with in Portland.
Speaker 1:They said look if you can get some tests done at your local.
Speaker 2:You know your primary care physician and we'll see some stuff and we can work with that. I said so that that was fine with me, and I was a little bit apprehensive about telling my my doctor here because I didn't know how she would react, because it's actually illegal. You know what I wanted to do donate, you know, a kidney anonymously, non-directed well, illegal here, right right, not in the.
Speaker 2:US. But I was sort of afraid. You know people here, they're very cautious and some friends said well, maybe if you, if you do that in the US and you have issues, they won't treat you here because you were doing something you shouldn't have done and maybe you should keep it a secret. But I just I didn't want to do that. I wanted my doctor here to know. But fortunately she was really supportive and said hey, that's a great thing, and in Germany we need to get with the time. So I appreciated that.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I had some blood tests done here.
Speaker 2:So I appreciated that. But anyway, I had some blood tests done here and my living donor coordinator in the US asked me if I could just mail that, email that to them. And I did and he said they would look at it. You know, with the donor team and I was a little bit surprised.
Speaker 1:See, we're really in Germany, yeah, I know it's okay, other people are around here.
Speaker 2:So anyway, I was a little surprised when I heard back from them and my coordinator said your EGFR is a little lower than what we'd like to have and so we don't think it would be safe for you to donate. And so that was sort of that. I was surprised to hear that I thought of myself as being pretty healthy. Are you a runner? I am, and fairly lean.
Speaker 2:And so yeah, I was just kind of thought I was in good shape so I just was sort of surprised. But then I did a little research and started looking into this EGFR and that it's related to your creatinine and you want your EGFR to be high and your creatinine to be low, and so I looked into some information about maybe what could have been that cause, what could have caused my creatinine to be a little bit higher and resulted in my EGFR being low. And so some of the things they said is you know you shouldn't eat too much protein and more fruits and vegetables and certain things. So anyway, I just thought, well, let me see if I can, I can improve this. I'm going to eat and drink very clean and I'm not going to.
Speaker 2:Another thing was like if you do exercise before you get this tested, it can cause your creatinine level to go up. So I definitely. I think I went for a run right before I did my previous test, so I decided I wasn't going to. I was going to take it really easy the night before the morning up.
Speaker 1:You weren't going to go for a run, eat a steak and then go.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So yeah, I executed my plan. I went there and in a few days I got the results back and I saw that my EGFR was now high enough and it was really exciting to hear that. And so then I touched base, I shared the good news with the team in the US and my living donor coordinator there passed on the information and I was sort of back in the running. And then the next step was to schedule the more vigorous, thorough testing which you have to do before you officially become a donor. And in my case I knew that if I donated, if I was approved, I wanted to do that around Christmas time, just because that would be easiest for my vacation. So the testing would be sometime in October, and Living Donor Coordinator David was able to schedule some testing in mid-October, basically within one week. So that was the next step taking a trip to the US so I could go through this rigorous testing.
Speaker 1:Interesting, so you went in October for testing. When did you end up donating Right? So I did that in.
Speaker 2:October. They informed me in early November that everything was okay and that they would accept my offer, and they scheduled my donation date for December 19th, which was perfect, basically right before Christmas, which was what I had hoped for all along, because my idea was that then I could use vacation from this year and next year. I was told that I would need to be there for almost a month or so. They would want to check on me and make sure I was doing okay before I went back to work or went back, came back to Germany.
Speaker 1:So you get six weeks off working here, and then you were kind of coordinating of I'll put two weeks on 2023, two weeks on 2024.
Speaker 2:Right, right, that was my plan.
Speaker 1:And then what actually ended up happening in terms of taking time off to do this? Well, what?
Speaker 2:actually happened was really good. Someone at my work who was sort of responsible for filing my vacation. I was just going to kind of eat those days, those two weeks, so that I would still have some vacation left over. But this woman her name is Sonia she contacted me. She said look, maybe you can try to call the health insurance fund here and just see. Maybe they will just consider this to be sick days. You know, that's how it is for Germans who donate they don't have to take it from their vacation. But because I wasn't donating to a family member, I was donating to a stranger and that's not covered in their law.
Speaker 1:I thought yeah, illegally.
Speaker 2:I thought I was kind of afraid that wouldn't happen, but I said OK.
Speaker 2:I'll try, it won't hurt. They looked up some information and basically they said look, we think this is covered. So if you can just give us a sick note from your doctor, from your surgeon, saying you know why you can't work, you know what happened to you, you gave a donation and how long you need off, we'll cover it. And sure enough, that's what happens. I didn't have to take vacation from the time that I actually donated until I went back to work over here. They didn't count against my vacation. So that was great.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, that's something Germany's doing better than the United States, for sure.
Speaker 2:I can imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it seems to be a major deterrent to people who need to take time off work and can't, or it's a hardship for them to do it, and, yes, there's different programs to help get that reimbursed. This makes it feel like how it should feel.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, so no, I have. I'm very grateful for that and happy that they accepted that and for them that was a good reason to be written off six. So, yeah, very, very happy about that.
Speaker 1:What did your German peers think about what you were doing? That's a great question.
Speaker 2:I kind of got the whole range. I mean, no one just came out and said you're crazy, but they were very kind of reserved in their responses. They said wow, that's something, but they were kind of reserved, as I said, about it. Like some of them, I think, are skeptical a little bit, simply because it's not allowed in Germany. So they think, well, there must be a good reason for that In Germany. They don't. You know, they're worried about corruption and that connection. And then some people they said they could imagine it or they can understand if it was a family member or someone. I think it was hard for them to understand why I would want to donate to a stranger, um, but I think for the most part it was. It was positively received and people were complimentary and they said, hey, that's that's impressive that you want to have something done to your body and it's not going to benefit you physically.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like you were supported by your community here?
Speaker 2:Yes, but I really I kept it. The circle of people who knew about it was pretty small, but no one tried to talk me out of it and so that was nice. But it would have been interesting, you know, if I had done this in the States, because there's so much more in place already in the States and it would be kind of interesting to know. I mean, as I mentioned before, I had this mentor, but that was at a distance. I have been able to, earlier in the process, be in communication with people or have a connection to the hospital and more people around me who knew about this.
Speaker 1:Do you know who received your kidney?
Speaker 2:No, and I was told as a non-directed donor that I probably wouldn't know. But if the person I did say that it was okay if they wanted to contact me for some reason. So I was kind of hoping maybe that they would contact me and then I would find out. Oh, you know I'm doing well, so I don't know. I just know that early in the morning the day after my surgery it was flown transplanted into someone in Minnesota.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of exciting and initially I was really hoping to hear who it was and how they were doing, but the more time that has elapsed since then, I'm kind of okay with not knowing. I just I'm positive by nature and I just imagine that whoever got it is really doing well and and feels like they have a new lease on life. So just thinking about that is is enough for me and I can imagine I don't know what the person is going through or their family, and the most important thing is that they're doing okay and they're healthy and that's fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can relate to that for sure. And did you know you can write the recipient.
Speaker 2:I didn't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can and you give it to your. David, that's your coordinator, right, right. And David gives it to the transplant coordinator of your recipient. Ah, okay. And then that then he or she will have the option to write you back. Okay, okay, that's interesting. Well, I'll have to think about that, and they may or may not do that, right, yeah, no, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:I'll have to think about that. Yeah, I have to think about that, yeah, okay, my donation was selfish because I wanted to do something good for someone and having someone receive my kidney was a way for me to make my dream come true. So, yeah, I'll definitely communicate them and say, look, it was an honor and it makes me feel like I did something worthwhile. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Thanks for telling me that, even if they don't't write back the point is to put this person's mind at ease like don't worry about anything yeah, I happily did this and that you don't need to thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know and or you seem like you don't need a yeah, no, no, no, yeah just just just thank you for letting you know me do something.
Speaker 2:Just, there are people out there who've been dealt bad cards and they deserve some benefits and I've got, I've had people giving me stuff my whole life and you know I haven't necessarily earned it and so, yeah, it's just a privilege, you know, been able to. You know, not many people at the end of the day have donated kidneys, so it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:It is, and I know that you think that you're normal, but I do think it's exceptional to leave your country to do something like this. Because, that's, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's a step up, yeah Of what, but it's kind of fun that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an adventure, so for some of us, this would be like a fun adventure. Once I saw this within my grasp, I'm going to be.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do this. And it wasn't even just that, it was like the all the correspondence and the logistics and working all that, but it but in some, in some ways I'm glad it happened like that, you know.
Speaker 1:And you're equipped to do that because you're doing that anyway in your whole life, yeah, yeah. So, uh, I think that could be hard for some people.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. People yeah for sure For sure. Definitely, I feel like a pretty ordinary guy at the end of the day, and a lot of people could do this if they wanted to. It's not, it's not. It's not a big deal and there's not a lot of pain and suffering involved or time, even and and and you feel great after it. You know, I feel it makes me feel good to think about the fact that I helped someone and um, you know, and I hope that encourages people not just to donate but, I don't know, just to do something kind for other people who are less fortunate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it doesn't need to be donating a kidney.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Just something.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I kind of feel like if I had the most boring life ever. Hey, I donated a kidney to someone.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool and he sat with this cool girl in Germany and did a podcast with her.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's only going to be downhill from here, laurie.
Speaker 1:Well, I remember this as my first episode taking Donor Diaries International, so I thank you for that opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my pleasure, it's so awesome. You know I've really enjoyed your podcast, so it's it's like a dream to be a part of it and talk to you in person.
Speaker 1:Well, I feel the same. It's gonna be a good night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for being my guest.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:You're welcome Come back soon.
Speaker 1:All right, we will do. Will and I checked what the current laws were since we recorded this episode and we found that the proposed changes in the current system are robust and will likely go into effect within the next year, led by a regulated national program to facilitate paired exchanges. There's a lot of updates to the current system, including enhanced donor protections, with mandatory psychological counseling and independent evaluations by qualified mental health professionals for prospective donors. Germans will be able to participate in paired exchanges without having to know the other pair. However, there are still requirements that would restrict someone for becoming a non-directed donor, as you will still be required to know your intended recipient. For more information, check out my show notes.
Speaker 1:This season of Donor Diaries is proudly sponsored by GiftWorks, an organization dedicated to empowering organ recipients and living donors through education, advocacy and support. By helping patients share their journeys and connect with donors, GiftWorks ensures everyone feels supported throughout the transplant process. We're honored to partner with a team that's transforming lives, one transplant at a time. To learn more, visit yourgiftworkscom. Remember every act of kindness creates ripples. Thanks for listening and keep spreading those positive vibes. This is Lori Lee signing off the sunshine. I just want to feel the sunshine. I share this life with you. I share this life with you. Bye.
