When Death Becomes Life: Notes From a Transplant Surgeon
By Dr. Joshua D. Mezrich. (Harper Perennial, 384 pages, $18 paperback.)
In a book that's part autobiography, part ode to patients and part history of organ transplants, Dr. Joshua D. Mezrich shares captivating stories of surgeries he's performed as well as lessons from the greats who made his work possible. When it comes to transplant surgery, a fair amount of that history took place right at the University of Minnesota with the trailblazing of Drs. Owen H. Wangensteen and C. Walton Lillehei, whom he calls the most "fascinating, daring, inspiring and complex character" of surgery's pioneers.
He also pays tribute to others, including Sir Peter Medawar, whose work with burn patients helped overcome the problem of organ rejection, and Willem Kolff, who worked in secret in Nazi-occupied Holland as he developed kidney dialysis, a precursor to transplantation. One of the tale's greatest heroes is the drug cyclosporine, approved in 1983 for use in transplants. Its ability to reduce organ rejection "changed everything."
Mezrich hints at turf battles — as when his team is in the operating room, waiting to procure abdominal organs while another team lines up ready to remove a donor's heart. His agony over complications and failed transplants is palpable. But like a toddler with a new toy, he is awed each time he sees a newly stitched-in kidney pink up and start to work.
Mezrich exudes gratitude for the families of organ donors and saves the most deference for the entirely healthy people who choose live organ donation. "Caring for these particular patients," he writes, "is where I get the most satisfaction, feel the most pride, and lose by far the most sleep."
"When Death Becomes Life" is a gripping tribute to one of medicine's great dichotomies: surgery that marks both the ultimate sacrifice and a lifesaving gift.
Kelly Maynard
