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Lung Transplants in the Twenty-First Century

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Second Wind

Part of the book series: PALGRAVE ((PSOH))

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Abstract

On February 7, 2003, surgeons at Duke University Medical Center transplanted a heart and lungs into 17-year-old Jesica Santillan, a thin, quiet, and very weak girl who had struggled for years with restrictive cardiomyopathy. During the surgery, they learned that the organs came from a donor with a different blood type from Jesica. This was a horrible mistake, something that was not supposed to occur with the computerized matching system used by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). Within an hour, Santillan began suffering from hyperacute rejection, a rare, rapid, and serious phenomenon that no drugs were strong enough to combat. After the surgery, she lay comatose, while her family, physicians, and much of the world watched, heartbroken and powerless.1 Hope unexpectedly reappeared less than two weeks later, when against long odds, new organs became available and Jesica received a second transplant. Unfortunately, it didn’t work well. Soon her brain was swelling and bleeding, and within two days, she was dead. Santillan’s case was unusual because of the unlikely error, the type of surgery (heart-lung transplants were rarely done anymore), who she was, and the media attention. The incident became especially charged and remained in the headlines for a month. Early media coverage focused on the family’s roller coaster and who was responsible for the mistake, but over time, it shifted to ethical, social, and political issues. Commentators asked: Was it fair to give Jesica organs for a second transplant when so many were waiting for a first chance?

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Notes

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  1. Mary Jo Festle
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© 2012 Mary Jo Festle

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Festle, M.J. (2012). Lung Transplants in the Twenty-First Century. In: Second Wind. PALGRAVE Studies in Oral History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137011503_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137011503_9

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-34366-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-01150-3

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