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
Building a Legacy of Life: The Origins of the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation | EP 34
What happens when a transplant surgeon, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, and a willingness to trust strangers come together? A revolution in kidney donation that has saved 20,000 lives and counting.
Meet Dr. Michael Rees and Sue Rees, the power couple behind the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation. In this captivating first installment of our two-part season finale, we journey back to 2007 when kidney paired exchange was in its infancy and most surgeons believed all transplant surgeries had to happen simultaneously to prevent donors from backing out.
Dr. Rees takes us behind the scenes of his radical experiment: what if we trusted donors to follow through on their promises even after their loved ones received kidneys? The medical establishment warned this trust-based approach could collapse the entire system. Undeterred, Mike vetted the first chain participant over a steak dinner, separated surgeries by weeks instead of performing them simultaneously, and created what would become what is now a common practice- Non‑Simultaneous Extended Altruistic-Donor chains.
Sue shares the heartbreaking reality that confronted her as a transplant coordinator: watching patients remain on dialysis despite having willing but incompatible donors.
Through their pioneering work with the Alliance's sophisticated matching algorithm, the Rees’ have transformed how we think about organ donation, proving that human goodness and trust can overcome medical skepticism and logistical challenges.
Whether you're curious about organ donation, inspired by medical innovation, or simply love stories of human connection, this episode reminds us that our differences—even incompatible blood types—can ultimately save each other's lives.
SHOW LINKS:
Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation
New England Journal of Medicine Article
People Magazine Article
Donor Diaries Website
Donor Diaries on Facebook
GiftWorks Website
Connect with Laurie Lee
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. Hello and welcome back. Today's episode kicks off a special two-part series to wrap up Season 3 of Donor Diaries with two remarkable guests, Dr Michael Reese and Sue Reese from the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation, also known as APKD or just the Alliance. You'll hear us use all three names throughout these episodes, so now you're in the know.
Speaker 1:I'm actually on site for this interview at the Alliance headquarters in Perrysburg, Ohio, which gave us a chance to sit down in person for this conversation, which was extra special. Let me share a little bit about this power couple with you. Dr Mike Reese is a transplant surgeon, innovator and founder of the Alliance. He's been at the forefront of paired kidney exchange for decades and he's the pioneer behind the first non-simultaneous, altruistic kidney donor chain, which revolutionized how transplant chains work. Today, Sue Reese currently serves as the Alliance's chief operating officer, educator and strategist, deeply committed to removing the obstacles that stand in the way of donation and transplantation, believing that everybody deserves a second chance.
Speaker 1:In part one, I talk with both Mike and Sue about the early years of kidney exchange, what it was like to be a pioneer in the field, and how they built trust with donors to facilitate the very first chains. Part two is a focus conversation with Sue where we explore donor protect, a set of resources and safety nets that help make living donation more accessible. If you're a current or potential donor, these are protections you'll want to know about and we'll walk you through them one by one. And why is this a two-part special, you ask? Because our original recording was dramatically interrupted by a thunderstorm that sounded more like a tornado once it hit the mic. So Sue talking about how safe it was to be a donor didn't quite land the same way, with sirens in the background. So I'm so excited to share this double episode with you. Let's hop in. Well, welcome to Donor Diaries. Thank you so much for being my guest today, Mike and Sue.
Speaker 2:Our pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having us. So to get started, can you tell us what is the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation?
Speaker 3:The Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation. It's a registry that we founded in 2006 to help individuals that are suffering from kidney disease have a willing but incompatible donor be matched up with somebody in the same situation.
Speaker 1:How do you, what do you do with the two with incompatible donor?
Speaker 3:recipient pairs. So good question. So we work with over 50 transplant centers in the United States and we have a partnership with these transplant centers. They're well-educated on paired exchange and what they do is put their incompatible pairs into our database. And, behind the scenes, what the APKD does is we figure out with our software system that we optimize the match and find the best match for that recipient, so we pair them up.
Speaker 1:And what makes the Alliance different from other organizations in the transplant space that are doing similar types of work?
Speaker 2:Well, I think what's unique about the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation is that it was started by a transplant surgeon to help transplant centers deliver the concept of paired donation for their patients in a way that served everybody the best possible way. The focus was really how can we maximize this beautiful gift of kidney paired donation so that everybody wins. That beautiful gift is this amazing algorithm at the center, built by a guy named Alvin Roth, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in part for this thing, that basically says okay, all these people can match, but while there might be a million ways that we could match people, we have a limited number of people in the pool and the donor can only give away one kidney, and a person who needs can only receive one kidney. And so, while there might be a million possibilities, you have to find the one that ultimately gives the best possible solution to the most people, and that's really what the APKD delivers for the United States.
Speaker 1:By the way, when I interviewed Al and I asked him who he admired most in transplant, he said it was you.
Speaker 2:That's very kind of him. Well, the feeling is mutual.
Speaker 1:How did the two of you get together?
Speaker 2:Another guy that's done a lot to help people with end-stage organ disease is Bob Montgomery. Bob helped start Pear Don donation along with a guy named Lloyd Ratner. Lloyd Ratner, I think, is the most innovative guy in our generation in transplantation. He started laparoscopic donation. He started transplanting people because they had antibodies that stopped the transplant and figuring out how to go through that. And then he had this big pool of people that didn't match and he came up with the idea of paired donation. So it was really.
Speaker 2:Lloyd was one of the real early guys and at the time he was a faculty member with Bob at Johns Hopkins and Bob went on to really be the guy who figured out how to do this antibody stuff and really became one of the world's leaders in that but also in pair donation. So Bob in the early days transplanted somebody who had wealth and who was very grateful for what had happened and said Bob, I'd like to give you a gift and I'd like you to create a meeting of the people who are interested. And this is like 2003,. So pair donation hardly existed.
Speaker 2:It was just starting and Bob knew all the players who were trying to make this happen in the United States and put together a meeting in Chicago at some hotel I don't remember, but I remember the lobby. And I was sitting there in the lobby and this booming bass voice said Hi, my name's Al Roth, I'm an economist at Harvard and I think I can help you and your dad do a better job with your kidney exchange. And I'm like oh, what does an economist know about health stuff? Economist man, you just worry about money, right? So to me, naive guy that I was back then, I didn't understand economics. It's really about all human interactions and Al actually does not study. He specifically doesn't study marketplaces where people can use money, because he wants to study the marketplace, not the money. I had no clue that that even existed.
Speaker 2:So back then for me there was this guy named Alan Greenspan who was, I don't know, the head of the Federal Reserve, and that's who I thought economists were. So I'm looking at Alan Greenspan not Al Roth guy, who's going to go on to win the Nobel Prize in market design and I'm looking at him like, what do you care about kidneys? But I'm from Flint, michigan, and my mom taught me to be nice, so I sat down on a bench there in the lobby with this economist guy and I listened to what he had to say and 90% of it went over my head. My dad and I at the time were writing software. My dad actually wrote the world's first software that let transplant centers put data in over the Internet and match people together, and we had a very simplistic view because I was the guy designing it.
Speaker 1:Was he a computer guy? Was he a doctor?
Speaker 2:He was a software computer programmer.
Speaker 1:That's a convenient pair, it was.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I'm really grateful to my dad for for making that possible. That by itself is a whole nother story. So my my dad was had built the software designed by me, and the way my brain worked was we've got all these people who have loved ones that want to donate. What we'll do is we'll draw a line from one donor to one recipient. We'll do is we'll draw a line from one donor to one recipient and then we'll associate a score on how good of a match that was for that recipient. And then we'll take all those lines, that where the donors can give, and we'll just rank, order them and we'll take the best one. And we are only thinking about doing two-way swaps. So we had two lines, one from one pair to another and back, so we'd have to add up the two lines for anybody that could do a two-way swap and then the one that scored the most. We do, and if there was another one we could do, we do that.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And what Al was trying to explain to me that day was that I was missing the fact that if you had four pairs and one could give to two and one could give to three and two could give to four and four could give to two, but the best match was one giving to two and two giving back to one. You would transplant 1 and 2, but you wouldn't transplant 3 and 4. And the score of 1 giving to 2 would be the highest 2-way that you could do. But if you were smart about it, you could figure out that 3 could give to 4 and 4 could give back to 3 and 1 could give to 3 and 2 could give to 4. And you wouldn't do one and two, because that was the highest scoring one, but rather you'd do two and four and one and three and you'd help four people and the total score of helping four people would be higher than the score of one and two getting a transplant. So you'd score more points and you'd help more people.
Speaker 1:I just pictured you guys. But is this what your pillow talk is like at night?
Speaker 3:Unfortunately sometimes yes.
Speaker 1:I love the picture of Al Roth coming into the hotel and saying hello, I'm Al Roth and you guys making contact there. Sue, how did you come into the Alliance and play into this?
Speaker 3:So I started out as a transplant coordinator at the Medical College of Ohio, and that was in 2001. And when we would have an individual come in with kidney failure into our clinic with their loved one who wanted to donate to them, we'd have to say I'm sorry, you're not compatible, and they would have to go back in and remain on dialysis. Well, laurie, you know that every month and every treatment that you're on dialysis, you have a higher chance of a complication and a 20% of dying the first year on dialysis. It was heartbreaking, and Mike brought home the files from. He brought home this idea that like, hey, what do you think if we could actually take the Sue's and her dad's that have kidney failure and match them up with somebody else in clinic? Let's stop turning people away from our clinic, let's find a way to make this happen. Well, in 2001, it wasn't legal to give your kidney to a stranger. In 2007, the Charlie Norwood Act passed, so then we were allowed to give a kidney to a stranger. It wasn't illegal, and one of our first exchanges happened within the walls of Ohio and I was blessed to be a part of.
Speaker 3:We had a son who wanted to give his mother a kidney, but since she was pregnant with him and when she was developing that child inside of her, she was creating antibodies against the child. That wasn't her, it was not the child, but it was the father. I don't know if you know this, but about 70% of women that have kidney failure, their child or their spouse cannot give them a kidney Because of the antibodies. Because of the antibodies. I didn't know that. Yeah, wow, it's fascinating, right? So here we are. I have kidney failure, just like this mother in my clinic. My son wants to give me a kidney, but we can't. So what do you do? And prior to 2007, I'd have to remain on dialysis. Then we had a pair in Cincinnati who a wife wanted to give to her husband, but they weren't ABO compatible, and it was our system that found that the wife could give to the mother in Toledo and that the son could give to the husband in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1:So this was the computer system that you made with your dad, mike, that you put these people in and you started to see where the lines connected donor and recipient pairs. What was that like to see that first connection be?
Speaker 3:made Emotional, because kidney disease isn't just a single disease for one individual. It affects the families, it affects society. I mean, people are forced to remain on dialysis because we don't have enough kidneys. And I think that's what's so important about your movement, this podcast, what we're doing at the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation. More than ever do we need people to the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation. More than ever do we need people to come together for humanity. Right, we do. We are finding our differences are saving each other's life. And it doesn't matter where you're located in the world. It doesn't matter what political views you have, it doesn't matter what color you are or where you live views you have. It doesn't matter what color you are or where you live.
Speaker 1:We need to come together to save lives. We do, and I love that you guys see that. And it's one of the things I love about you and Mike is your humanness and that you talk about this so frequently. Thank you for being those people, thank you. So last night I got to meet the first non-directed donor in Ohio, dusty, and the man who started the first kidney chain, matt. Can you tell us the story about the first chain and we haven't been doing chains for that long. I'd love to hear the behind the scenes story about how that one came about, because that's a little bit different than doing the paired exchange that you were just talking about, sue.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and I'm going to let Mike talk about this because it's such a great story of how he vetted, like how do you trust someone to pay it forward?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Right, and that's you. Find a guy like Matt, right. Right, I mean, matt is just a good human and said hey, I know people are suffering, people are dying and they're losing their loved ones. Take my kidney, give it to somebody. And it was Mike and Al that came up with the concept of well, what if we could give Matt's kidney to somebody and then their loved one pays it forward? Right, that's a big trust. If Matt gives his kidney to Barb, like he did, what if Ron reneged?
Speaker 1:Right, which is actually something I don't worry about. Is it something you worry about? Not?
Speaker 3:anymore. But when we thought of this concept we got a lot of pushback. Really, you're going to do this Because Barb has an incompatible donor. What if the next person in line which Ron was going to give to Angie? What if Ron said, hey, my loved one got a kidney, yeah, I'm out? And then Angie, 33 years old, suffering on dialysis since the age of 18, didn't get a kidney. Where is she left in the system? So this is a great story for Mike to tell, because it's really about trust.
Speaker 2:So when we had this idea, remember my dad and I had written software that lets you do two-way swaps. So it's 2006. We were doing two-way swaps and people were doing three-way swaps and four-way swaps. Two-way swaps and people were doing three-way swaps and four-way swaps, and I think Johns Hopkins and Bob Montgomery and his group had done a six-way swap and the only way they could do it was to do it on a Saturday when the operating rooms weren't being used, because to do a six-way swap, you need 12 operating rooms, you need six donors and six recipients, you need all the surgeons. It's a big deal and most hospitals couldn't give up 12 operating rooms.
Speaker 1:So back at the beginning they were doing all of these surgeries at once for a six-way swap.
Speaker 2:That's right, and the reason they did them all at once is let's make it simple, let's just have a two-way swap. So let's have it be you and me, lori.
Speaker 2:So, I love somebody who wanted to give them a kidney. You love somebody who wanted to give them a kidney. We're the donors me, lori. So I love somebody who wanted to give me a kidney. You love somebody who wanted to. We're the donors. And you're really nice and I'm not so nice, right? So on day one you give your kidney to the person that I love and I'm supposed to donate on day two. And on day two, you know, I thumb my nose at you and say I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm going to come get you.
Speaker 2:The person that I love already got my kidney. Actually, I don't want to do this anymore. I really didn't want to do this at all in the first place, and now the thing I wanted to have happen has happened. I'm out of here. We can't legally strap somebody to a table and take their kidney out. That's not legal.
Speaker 2:You might feel that way, that that's unethical, that they behaved in such a way, but the truth is donating a kidney is voluntary and just the fact that you gave a kidney to the person I love you can't force my hand and make me give my kidney. So, because we couldn't trust people in that way with 100%, we had to recognize that if you gave your kidney to the person that I love and I did not give my kidney to the person that you love, you would be harmed in two ways. First, the person that I love and I did not give my kidney to the person that you love, you would be harmed in two ways. First, the person that you love didn't get the promised gift. But kidney exchange is a mechanism whereby you and the person that you love can find a kidney, and you've lost your ability to do that now because you no longer have a kidney that can participate in the exchange.
Speaker 2:So we had to protect society. All of us transplant surgeons in 2006 had it in our heads that you had to do this at the same time, because we had a fiduciary responsibility to protect you and your loved one. The first time Sue and I did this, we had Steve Woodle in Cincinnati and Mike Reese in Toledo and CNN was filming it and the camera crew looked at Steve and he said we're putting the donor to sleep. And then the second CNN crew was in Toledo and they were filming me we're putting the donor to sleep. So they heard we're putting the donor to sleep, switch view. And they hear me say now wow that's how we did it Right.
Speaker 2:So we had to do all these transplants at the same time and it was just, it was embedded in our minds that you had to do it that way. So Al Roth at the time had a graduate student he was working with named Uku Unger, and we had a computer programmer named John Kopke, special guy, who's written wrote the code for us for everything that we did after my dad stopped doing it. John did it for 10 years, 15 years, and we were on this call and Utku was trying to convince me no, if a nice person gives their kidney, like you did, laurie, you know. So instead of you love somebody and I love somebody, and we're not going to donate until the person we love gets a kidney. Imagine now it's Sue loves somebody and I love somebody, and Sue's the good person who's willing to give to me, and I'm the bad guy that's going to cheat. So you now give to the person that I love, right, and I'm supposed to, on day two, give to the person that Sue loves. So you give to the person that I love.
Speaker 2:But now I say no, no, I'm not to, on day two, give to the person that Sue loves. So you give to the person that I love. But now I say no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. It's completely different, because Sue hasn't given up her kidney. You did not, sue. So we can put Sue and the person she loves back into the pool and find a different match for them. So the harm that's caused to them is very different than the harm that would have been caused to you if you had given your kidney and then I didn't do what I was supposed to do. That novel idea that we could, even if people did, cheat, the harm would be less, was part of why this concept got published in the New England Journal.
Speaker 2:But it also got published because we said you could trust me, you know the next in line to donate and of course, we were all so filled with fear that we had to do everything at the same time.
Speaker 2:This idea that we could trust somebody was anathema, and I think that that kind of said actually people are nice. And I've come to see now that if you're the kind of person who comes forward and says I'm willing to give a kidney because I love you so much, and then you find out you don't match and you say, well, I'm willing to give a stranger my kidney because I love you so much and you'll get a kidney if I do that, and then they watch you get the gift of life and have your whole life transformed and they get you back. Somebody like that is very unlikely to then be the kind of person who wouldn't pay it forward so another family could enjoy the beautiful gift that they had been given. So while it does happen, it happens very rarely, and so Sue and I and all of the transplant surgeons, transplant professionals across the United States they all feel very comfortable now with this idea that you can give a kidney today and your loved one is going to receive a kidney in the future.
Speaker 1:And is it true, if somebody does back out, that there's typically a way to fix the situation and you don't leave the patient who lost hanging?
Speaker 2:Always, almost always, and that's because of nice people like you, Lori. So you know, we have enough people who are giving a kidney with nothing expected in return that we have extra kidneys, so to speak, that we can say I'm so sorry that this happened to you. We have an extra kidney, by the way, because of nice people like Lori, and here's the kidney that you were supposed to get, but you're going to get it from somebody else and, fortunately, there's nearly 500 people every year who do this and give their kidney to somebody that they don't know.
Speaker 1:And so Matt was the first guy that you did this with.
Speaker 2:So Matt saw a TV show that made him want to donate and he got connected to some people in one of our participating transplant centers, connected to some people in one of our participating transplant centers, and it was to.
Speaker 2:It was actually 2007 because would Coover finally convinced me that we could do this and it took two hours for him to to convince me because I was so I just could not see what he was talking about. But I then talked to the transplant center where he had gone and he had offered to give a kidney and back then if somebody offered to give a kidney, we'd give one kidney to one person and I said, well, why don't we give that kidney to somebody who has a loved one who could pay it forward and create a chain? And they love the idea and so we explained it to Matt. Matt loved the idea and it just so happens that when we put it all together we could do a three-way swap. So Matt would give to somebody named Barb, barb's husband, ron, would give to Angie, angie's mom, lori, would give to somebody down in, and another one of our transplants.
Speaker 1:And these are real names you're using right now this actually happened and it's documented on your wall right behind you.
Speaker 2:Actually, if you go to People Magazine and won Heroes of the Year and it got published in the New England Journal of Medicine, so it was very much an academic idea but it was a beautiful societal idea that captured the imagination of People Magazine. Societal idea that captured the imagination of People Magazine. So the challenge for me, as the guy who was sort of breaking this code of simultaneous transplants- You're a disruptor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am a disruptor and to do that, you know, you have to have a little bit of being willing to break the rules. If you thought it was the right for me, if you thought it was the right thing to do which I did, but most of my colleagues at the time thought it was the wrong thing to do I thought, yeah. In fact, when I heard this and finally the idea clicked, when this big idea was explained to me, I could see what was possible and I wrote the fastest paper of my life and I wrote it for the New England Journal of Medicine, which I'd never written before, and we submitted it all within a week and it came back. It got rejected and the reviewer said interesting idea, but the New England Journal shouldn't accept it, because the New England Journal publishes things that have been done and are proven and this has never been done, it's just an idea.
Speaker 2:But secondly, and perhaps more important, they shouldn't do this because they're going to trust somebody. And you shouldn't trust somebody because when theyit's going to happen, somebody is going to cheat and when they cheat, the entire United States system is going to fall apart, because this whole thing is built on trust. All of organ donation is built on trust, and when that trust is broken, the system will fail, and so they shouldn't do it. You shouldn't take this risk.
Speaker 1:I mean, I understand the fear behind that because if this was screwed up at the beginning, at such an early point and trying to figure this all out, it could have taken years to correct and regain that trust right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know you invest in your money, you're doing academic work. The amount of risk you're willing to take is usually recognized by the amount of benefit that can come from this and by taking this risk, this concept's now led to an extra 20,000 kidney transplants around the world.
Speaker 1:Thank you both for that. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:It's a really cool thing, but I want to try to take the listener back to 2007, when we were making this happen. There was a lot of opposition and we were taking a lot of risk. So I'll ask you and those listening now, imagine that you were me and I want to give Matt's kidney to Barb and I got this guy down. Were me and I want to get Matt's kidney to Barb and I got this guy down in Arizona and I live in Ohio and the guy in Arizona who's Ron the husband how do I know if the guy is actually not going to cheat?
Speaker 2:And the New England Journal said we're not going to publish your thing. So I thought to myself maybe they're right, maybe he'll cheat. So I was planning to win by. On the same day we do three transplants, right, and if Matt's gift helped three people instead of just one person we had already won.
Speaker 1:That's what Matt said too, so that's how the donor felt about it, which I think is pretty cool.
Speaker 2:If the third person then cheated, oh well, we already had won. But when the New England Journal did this, I'm a scientist at heart, so I did the experiment. I took that three-way chain and I broke it into three separate transplants, and the first one I separated by a week so we would test. Ron, you got a week, dude, do what you promised to do. And then Angie, we gave her two months to back out and she still donated. And so we started doing these things separately.
Speaker 1:Were you sweating the whole time.
Speaker 2:I sweat the whole time. Then we did two transplants and trusted somebody. So we did it incrementally. You know like a scientist would build these things. It could have been terrible, right? So how do you that very first time we interact with Ron, how do you decide whether or not you can trust him? What would you do, lori? How would you evaluate Ron? How would you come in your own mind Look, is this the right guy? Is this the right pair? I could do another pair Matt could give to somebody else. Is this the right guy? Will this guy do what he promised to do? Because you know, if we'd done it 10 times and then something happened, somebody failed, it's that'll be okay.
Speaker 1:But if this first one fails, it's a big deal. So how do you evaluate to make sure that when? You try this for the first time. It works and it's not a failure.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:I think you got to trust people.
Speaker 2:So that's what I had to do I had to figure out how to trust this guy, and I'd never met him, and I would have met him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, so, so. So medical clinics aren't the place to build trust. The patient hopefully already has trust in their doctor and the doctor. One of the reasons it's gotten in the New England Journal of Medicine is because doctors aren't used to trusting patients. It never works in that direction. And that's what we were saying you could do. We were saying, hey, transplant professionals, you can trust people to do the right thing, Right. But I was doing that for the first time and I was super nervous. So I got in my little minivan and I I flew him into Detroit Metro airport and I picked him up and I took him out for the best steak dinner we could have in Toledo, Ohio, and I spent an evening with him and, uh, at the end I liked the guy and I trusted him.
Speaker 1:So you, did meet him and you vetted him I vetted him over a steak and red wine. That's beautiful, isn't it great it is, and now you're not doing any vetting. There's no steak dinners.
Speaker 2:No, we don't. I have come to see that the type of people who say I love you so much, I'm going to give you a kidney. Okay, I love you so much, I'm going to give you a kidney. Okay, I love you so much that, even though I can't directly give you a kidney, I'm going to give it to a stranger you then see that that happens for the person you love, those people don't cheat. We actually don't need to vet them. There has to be a little bit of trust. If you get the heebie-jeebies when you're talking to somebody like, oh boy, I'm not sure what this is, but that's not the type of people in general who come forward and say I'm willing to be a living donor.
Speaker 1:And that wraps up part one just as the storm rolled in. Apologies for the abrupt ending, but I'm so glad we were able to capture this incredible conversation about trust, innovation and what's possible when people step up, follow through and pay it forward. The pioneers behind Kidney Exchange took bold risks when many thought it was too complex or unlikely to succeed. Their vision and persistence have saved thousands of lives. For me, it's a powerful reminder that true innovation takes courage to challenge the status quo and the determination to keep going when the way forward isn't always clear. Check out the show notes for links to the People Magazine article and the New England Journal of Medicine piece that Mike referenced, and I really hope you'll join us for part two, where Sue and I dive into the protections available to living donors through the Alliance's Donor Protect Program. It's an important conversation, especially if you're considering donation yourself.
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. See you in part two. I just want to feel the sunshine. I just want to feel the sunshine. I share this life with you. I share this life with you. Bye.
