SAVE A LIFE
Minutes count in transplantation surgery, April 1985
Courtesy of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/John Kaplan, photographer
Our goal is to save more lives by increasing organ donation. We are eager to partner with organizations that will use the film to motivate more people to become organ donors. The impact of Burden of Genius was demonstrated at early screenings where many audience members were inspired to become donors.
While the technology of transplantation has made tremendous advances, much unrealized potential remains because of the critical shortage of organs. Our distribution campaign is designed to educate potential donors by letting them know how easily they can sign up and save lives.
In 1952, when Dr. Thomas Starzl graduated from medical school, there wasn’t a single example of successful organ transplantation in any species anywhere in the world. Last year, more than 39,000 lives were saved with organ transplants in the United States alone.
But one thing has remained constant: the need for donor organs.
Today, more than 100,000 people are on the waiting list for kidneys, livers, hearts and other organs. Another person is added to the waiting list every ten minutes. Twenty of them will die today because an organ is not available.
Dr. Starzl with Julie Rodriguez (above and right) recipient of the world’s first successful liver transplant, performed by Starzl in 1967.
Courtesy of the John, Louise & Julie Rodriguez family
A half century later in 2017, Mackston Barrick received a new liver at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute in Pittsburgh.
