I started on the transplant service at another hospital.  At any time I could get a call to go to yet another hospital to "procure" an organ. Procure, I guess, sounds better than harvest.  It could come at any time tonight.  It's about a 2 hour process, then transplant will take about...who knows, maybe 7 or 8 hours.

I have been looking forward to this rotation for a long time.  I don't think I am interested in transplant as a specialty because there is a lot more medicine involved than I like to deal with.  But maybe my experience this month will change my mind.

I really love the idea that we have gotten far enough with our technology that we can essentially re-use a person's organ when they can no longer use it.  The interesting thing is that as advanced as this surgery is, as difficult as it is to make the new organ fit in the new user, the most difficult problem of transplantation has not actually been solved yet.  Well, only partially solved, so far.

I am talking about the problem of rejection, which problem I thought I'd left behind me in high school.  Every transplant surgeon fears and works hard to prevent organ rejection.  And then there are the side effects of the medications used to prevent rejection, and then there's the fact that these patients are ever after more susceptible to illnesses.

As usual I am grateful for the opportunity to do such cool things.  If I get a call tonight I'll be up out of bed in an instant and on the road quick - I'm going to a procurement.