good afternoon and thank you for being with us today my name is james curry and unfortunately we have a relatively serious topic of discussion today a teacher here at the high school mr jason zip it and his wife diane is if they have two children and like any parent out there i want to see their children grow up in the wonderful lives unfortunately mississippi is faced with a serious genetic health condition called our ports and it's progressively degenerative which means that it renders the person unable to make a certain type of college which acts as a filtration system for the kidneys and without this college in the kidney begins to break down presenting serious health obstacles for mississippi even though this condition does sound grim there's help and this is it is in need of a kidney transplant and without one she will die but as a community there is much we can do we can follow the lead of her children who instead of feeling sorry for her took action and made this video to post to social media to save their mother now the video quickly went viral and was featured on good morning america and we'd like to play for you now now after watching something as touching as that video there are often many questions as to what we as a community can do to help and here with us today is dr renzo machado certified surgeon and a member of the american society of transplant surgeon and i thank you for coming on and talking about this serious topic today now when we see a video like that as touching as this is basically you and seeing what kind of response it's garnered in the fact that it's practically  many different ways patients go about when they come through the transplant institute of allegheny general as far as how to identify donors social media for those who are very savvy can can be very  very helpful we do happy asians who have come in and have identified donors be a social media a video like this obviously it's not something we see all the time and it is very touching and it has produced quite a few patients or quite a few potential donors who have called then but there are there are patients who use social media some more savvy than others and this video having been up for i think was put in march so close to two received quo if you cause obviously when when someone calls for any type not just end up in this particular case they they go through a screening process essentially a phone screening so over i think we've had close to about eighty people call in and of those about half of them had conditions that would not allow them to donate so far i think we have about eight to ten people who are going to be coming in for evaluation th fantastic white and you say there are people who weren't eligible or you know after the evaluation process to realize that there kidney cannot be used what is that process and what goes into being a living do for living donation patients obviously have to go to have to be healthy to donate and the good they undergo a medical and a cycle social evaluation and any thing that  we identified in either evaluation may disqualify them but just things in general someone who can't be a donor or someone who has diabetes diabetes is a potential cause of future kidney failure so someone who is diabetic now who donates a kidney may end up needing a kidney themselves because of the diabetes so diabetes high blood pressure depending on  someone's age may or may not disqualify him things like having a nap there a history of cancer or an active cancer and obviously there are psychosocial evaluation would also be important  now as far as when you have to go this route to find a living donor you're not having this option of a family member who can you know easily donate to you what kind of emotional you know issues does this prevent present to a patient like you see a lot of people who you know have a lot of issues you know asking the public for help it i dialysis they come in for a transplant evaluation there's two sources essentially of kidneys from with which we can do transplants and one is a deceased donor a categoric donor someone who has passed away and we're a donor previously identify themselves or the family makes them a donor afterwords to that is what we when patients go on the waiting list that's essentially what we're talking about someone who is waiting for a deceased donor kidney the wait list and western pennsylvania is about three to five years for a deceased donor kidney living donor kidney which is identified someone who is alive who is willing to donate a kidney can be challenging for patients most of the time those family members will come forward and want to donate a kidney many times they may be disqualified for one reason or another and then it becomes then how do you identify in to whatever community it is that that is your community but to to go and say hey this and you have two kidneys why don't you give me one yeah right but to actually do something like diana's kids did which is just put the story out there now there's different ways to do that this was very touching and gets people more emotionally involved but it's really more about putting the story out there and giving the facts that patients who have stage renal disease when you compare patients who have to go on dialysis versus patients who receive a kidney transplant patients who are on dialysis do not live as long  we're talking about life saving procedures so getting the family friends community to understand that aspect of it many times has to have we have donors come forward now apart from being a living donor and you know plenty of people are not compatible with the person who needs the the org and cannot donate you know something to help them out what other routes you see people taking to try and you know help out people in this situation so that there's when someone comes forward one of the and is able to donate to the person they identified as their  be the oh at our center we do not do a deal incompatible but there are centers around the country who will do transplants from in a to appear be very those those kind of incompatibilities were not one of them however if someone is not incompatible there are programs to do something like a kidney exchange where there may be another potential pair somewhere in the country and there we participate in what's called the national kidney registry but there's different programs that have national programs that are national programs that will identify donor and recipient elsewhere that i don't know if you guys are familiar with these kidney chains where up to ten twenty five forget what the longest one is but we you can do a transplant i give my kidney to someone and someone gives their kidney to someone else and down the line my wife will get a kidney so so it could doesn't have to be that we have to be completely compatible there's a there's different ways to get that done well that's fantastic but as far as when you do find a donor who is able to or in this exchange situation when somebody is able to you know that can be a scary process for anybody who's who's going through a surgery and donating orgon  do you see a lot of people who are has to tense once they're in that situation because if you know anything from cost or you know you're living with one kidney in the event that you know they down the line you need that kind of procedure or certainly for the patient and for the transplant community that is a a big deal it's something that we are very well aware of that we are asking a patient who essentially doesn't need a surgery we're asking a healthy patient to undergo a surgery and they come forward because of the the essentially the psychological benefits that the donor receives from knowing they're helping another human being but they are taking risks there's risks that are associated with the surgery itself there's risks associated with the long term outcomes of their of their kidney function but also things like financial risks right someone has to take time off to work all those things we take into account if like i mentioned earlier if there's anything during the process of work out that the that we are comfortable with we don't proceed with with the surgery they donation and that we would never put a patient who is healthy at risk for the sake of someone else as much as we want to help every patient we will never we will never do that to someone who is healthy to help them with raid and as far as you know this this financial you know that can be an obstacle for a lot of people that the financial issues that might come along with it do you see ever on communities who you know do fundraising or something like got to help or is that not very common is that you know are a couple of things on the on the finances one a donor should not be charge for any part of the of the procedure any part of the the work up all the way post donation none of that should should a donor ever have to come out of pocket for any of those costs that that is there is funding for that stuff so we never charge for any of those but there are donors who work full time who have to take time off for work sometimes only take time off to work we have we don't get our full paycheck and later part of it that part we cannot of health care in this country today is very high and that includes kidney transplant patient also for the recipient now is there any is specially with health insurance  for the person receiving the organ how how common is you know what a kidney transplant procedure that it would be covered by health insurance or is it is it a lot of out of pocket expenses that these people go through a kid kidney end stage renal disease is actually one of the things that is covered under medicaid medicaid and have being on dialysis so we have every transplant center including ours has social workers and have financial people who work with these patients to try to if they're not already on a type of program to get on a program if that's if they don't have private insurance or something of the like to so that they're out of pocket costs are as little as possible but these are things that we tried to identify prior to transplant because again the costs as specially the post transplant medication cause can be a burden for some people so we traditionally this operation was done with what's called a flank concession sort of a incision on the side right below your ribs sometimes you would have to remove part of the lowest rare so it was a big operation from a healing standpoint where patients would take quite a bit of time off work with minimally invasive type operations we do we do this operation patients are usually in the hospital two to three days they are out of work some somewhere between four to eight weeks the most patients feel much much better in about two to four weeks some a little bit that's on the donor side and there we sit be inside and healing is about the same a four to six week we covering patients who are dealing with in states renal disease or chronic when they receive a kidney they couldn't especially on the living donor kidney side that works and functions right away they start feeling better right away really meaning that's a very next day the because they're so used to not feeling well right there when they actually feel while they they feel the difference right yeah finally having a kid mean that is doing weights first you exaggerate yeah yeah so as far as donors go they almost have a longer recovery time than the recipient i'm sorry is as far as don't yeah they have a long i wouldn't say a longer recovery time is a different recovery time bob both are about four to six weeks it's you can take it as with the patient who is receiving a kidney this is someone who is sick who gets an organ and starts to feel better on the donor side were taken someone who already feels well and we're turning an operation on them and it's kind of like apples and oranges and you can't compare them but essentially their recovery is going to be about the same because on the recipient's side they have to start taking the sense of community and helping out is far greater than i'm sure do you see a lot of people who aren't necessarily discouraged by this they're not you know discouraged by the fact that they have you know maybe they have a four is that knowing that someone is going to to do better to live a longer life to be there when i can die as a case for her kids to see her in their sixty's and they have a child who's in their thirty's they'll tell me i don't i'm not going to ask my kids i don't want my kids to donate to me what i tell them is well yeah you can do that but when you child but for your grandchildren right right that the reason people step forward is because they want to have you this person around for a longer time they don't want to see the diane is going to be able to be there poor her kids and hope and hopefully poor her grandchildren's kids and this is what when families come forward this is why they do it we also have people who come forward who are  altruistic they don't have someone who who they're planning to donate to they just want to donate to the poor or to someone they don't know many times they don't want any fanfare they they're doing it out of the kindness of their heart knowing they're helping another human being but it's that same motivation you know in we don't push anyone if someone says you know what i thought i wanted to do this but i've changed my know why why why what can we do to change your mind but it is never if someone says i have reservations and we stop there i'm not sure how much of a follow up you do with these people  but you see a lot of cases where there's almost a friendship or a bond for is between these people do people ever keep in touch after this kind of thing or is it usually kind of operation what it is it depends they say well when we to reach out and say thank you thank you for giving me this this gift but because we protect the privacy of both the recipient and the donor the donor has to want to receive that thank you yes so unless the donor is open to meeting that there we sippin that it doesn't occur but there are sometimes people who want to meet and who make friendships but a lot of times the donors especially if these you said if you're close to twelve or eight between eight and eight to ten i think are scheduled and will be going through the evaluation process ok and as far as that evaluation process goes how many factors go into that you know how what is the percentage there is is there is there even a way to gauge that i would have to go back and look at the numbers oh yeah yeah yeah sure but whether it is that of the patients who eight how many actually end up going through donation i would have to look back because sometimes we have patients who will have ten people come forward and four for one in on the other side we may have one just has one person come forward you know and and it's so it's truly i would have to go back and see our numbers yeah well i mean obviously  all here at peterson ship and hopefully everybody watching we are open to doing anything that we can to help raise awareness for this and helping any of these these people who if they are compatible if they need any you know sort of but we wanted to come from them and really just hearing the stories of patients who are dealing with kidney failure and how that can make life very difficult to live life but also knowing that their life is going to be cut short people do come forward the power of just the human kindness really comes to the forefront the one thing i do want to touch his we talked about donors we're putting someone who's healthy at risk but kidney donation as a whole is safe the chances the risks of the patient developing kidney failure from donation are extremely extremely low or actually when we compare they're less in the u s general population wow kidney donors live just as long and in some papers even longer than the u s general population so because we're taking patients who have to be healthy use their healthy before donation and a stay healthy post donation i'm sure it's a very extensive vetting process because we don't want you know the chance that you know we have this procedure done and they get this transplant and it doesn't do them to do different per se that is out of the ordinary for anyone who's living life with two kidneys great and dr sure i just have one final question for you it looks like they're asked me to wrap it up here in just a minute but well kind of a question almost even from my specific standpoint a lot of a lot of students i know at the school want to know you know maybe they're not eligible to be a donor obviously you know some of these kids that i've talked to are sixteen seventeen years old but they want to feel that sense of community and help in some way you know is there any and maybe you know you're not familiar with you know how teenagers there's over one hundred thousand people who are waiting for an organ transplant this is all organs this is not just kidney kidneys but there's over one hundred and one hundred thousand patients of those close those numbers continue to increase so it's raising awareness about overall organ donation for a living donor as well as deceased and how do you do that programs like this you know just just having having the community understand that living donation is safe but there are also options for the ceased i'm fantastic and thank you again so much for being here with us today that condition as well and so if you or someone you know is thinking about being a living donor please we encourage you to take that next step because you could save a life thank you