Donor Diaries
Donor Diaries is a podcast about the beauty and messiness of living organ donation. Get ready for some amazing stories about what happens when people decide to share their organs with other people, when people chose to share life. The sharing of kidneys and other organs is an incredibly fascinating topic that teaches a lot about kindness, love, and life! There are over 100,000 people on the kidney transplant waitlist today, and sadly about 13 people die each day waiting for a kidney that they never receive. One in three Americans are at risk for developing chronic kidney disease and one in nine already have kidney disease. Most don’t even know it. Donor Diaries shares unfiltered stories of kidney donation through the voices of living donors and straight talk from transplant experts who are committed to bringing the conversation of living organ donation to the forefront of society, so patients no longer have to die or suffer while waiting for a transplant.
Donor Diaries
Leverage | EP 4
Join Laurie Lee and Ned Brooks as they discuss kidney chains, lightning strikes, Freakonomics, and kidney vouchers!
Ned Brooks is a retired businessman who donated his kidney as a non-directed donor in 2015, at the age of 65, for the purpose of starting a kidney chain of three transplants. His kidney went to a young mother in Colorado. Ned was so taken by the experience that he started National Kidney Donation Organization (NKDO) for the purpose of helping prospective living donors to make their donation in as effective a manner as possible and with the most protections available in the industry.
NKDO now has over 30 donors and recipients who mentor both donor candidates and patients seeking a donor. NKDO works very closely with the National Kidney Registry (NKR) because the NKR is affiliated with about 100 transplant centers across the country and runs Donor Shield, a suite of protections for living donors.
Ned is CEO of NKDO and an ongoing student of transplant who enjoys mentoring and educating people on the need for living organ donors.
Episode Links
National Kidney Donation Organization (NKDO)
National Kidney Registry (NKR)
Ned Brooks Ted Talk
Make Me a Match (Freakonomics Radio Episode)
Ask Not what your Podcast Can Do for You (Freakonomics Radio Episode)
Donor Diaries