Memorial Hermann Serves as Lifesaving Role Model

Through teamwork, commitment and an unerring belief that great good can come from tradgedy, Memorial Hermann Hospital has built a reputation as the most successful organ recovery site in the United States, said Sam Holtzman, president of the LifeGift Organ Donation Center in Houston.

The United Network for Organ Sharing recently confirmed that Memorial Hermann Hospital recovered more organ donors than any other single institution in the country last year.

Holtzman says Memorial Hermann's success with organ donation is long-standing.

The hospital routinely doubles, triples or quadruples the performance of most other Level I trauma centers in the country, Holtzman said.

"This is no accident. Successful organ recovery requires the management of a number of highly complex variables," he said.

It all begins with tragedy and overwhelming grief. The kind of grief that numbs the mind, paralyzes the senses and creates enormous amounts of emotion. The family of the donor must first accept the loss of the donor before anything else. Then the family, despite its grief, must be encouraged to make the decision to help others live.

Medical management of the donor and identifying potential recipients for that donor's organs, in a very short period of time, become the next challenge. Hundreds of things can happen that could make the whole process come to a screeching halt and fail. If it does, not only is that donor lost, but in all likelihood some of the recipients will be lost as well.

In the face of this type of extraordinary pressure and emotionally charged atmosphere, organ recovery at Memorial Hermann Hospital succeeds.

In 1999, the LifeGift Organ Donation Center received a three-year federal grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to try and replicate the Memorial Hermann success story at other Level I trauma centers.

"What has been accomplished at Memorial Hermann and Ben Taub is just phenomenal," said Holtzman, "and we are trying to put similar programs in place at Level I trauma centers in Los Angeles, New York and Seattle. If we are successful, then Memorial Hermann will not only serve as a role model, but will help thousands of other patients throughout the country."

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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