Colleen Kelly and her husband Matt Jankowich have been active members of the RMHP Running Club for nine years. Early on Monday and Wednesday mornings, you’ll find them on the Brown track, and on weekends they join club members for longer runs on the area’s roads or trails. Both are physicians, Colleen a gastroenterologist and Matt a pulmonologist. Fellow teammate Paul Morrissey, a 17-year member of the club, rides his bike to many of the practices. He is a kidney transplant surgeon and serves as the Director of the Division of Organ Transplant at Rhode Island Hospital. His team does 60 kidney transplants yearly, about 20 from a living donor like Colleen, and 40 from a deceased donor. The donor-recipient pair only need to be blood group compatible. Chuck Hampton works the early morning shift at the welcome desk of the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center at Brown University, where the RMHP Running Club holds indoor practices from November through April. Beloved by members of the club, students, and staff alike, Chuck greets members as they swipe ID cards, eager to chat for a few minutes while offering a fist bump to every student-athlete arriving for morning practice. In November of 2022, Colleen donated a kidney to Chuck, and Paul was the surgeon who carefully sewed it in place.
The following is an essay Colleen wrote about the experience.
Some things in life you do reflexively, without thinking. Others you carefully consider, weighing risks and reaching a logical conclusion. My decision to donate a kidney to a 72-year-old man who wasn’t a relative, or even a close friend, was both. I am aware that to many people it seems a bit crazy, but it made sense to me. He needed one, I had two, the data on long-term outcomes for living donors is reassuringly excellent, and I would get four weeks off work around the holidays to recover.
I had known Chuck for about seven years, since I joined a running club that uses the facility for practice. When he told me his kidneys were failing and rolled up his left sleeve to reveal the fistula, he didn’t seem too worried. He planned to get listed for a transplant and felt confident things would work out. My reaction was immediate, kind of like when someone needs a pen to sign something and you hand them yours. I knew that I would give him one of my kidneys. I am blood type O negative, and a colleague and running club friend, who also happened to be Chuck’s transplant surgeon (Rhode Island is like that), was pretty confident that I would be a match.
To be clear, I didn’t offer right away. Instead, I spent time researching and discussing it with family and close friends over the next few months. The reactions were mixed, but mostly supportive and those who weren’t happy about it (i.e., my dad) knew well enough that it wasn’t possible to talk me out of something I had decided to do. As the path forward opened in front of me, with a few encouraging signs, if you believe in that kind of thing, it became apparent that not to donate would be turning away from a calling. For me, it wasn’t so much a choice as an obligation to a fellow human being, whose kindness represents the best of what we can all be, and who deserved more time.
In the United States, over 100,000 people are on the waiting list for kidney transplant, yet only about 25,000 transplants are performed annually. With waits as long as five years, most die waiting. If one out of every 10,000 healthy Americans donated, then many dialysis centers would close. Encouragingly, more and more people are joining the living donors club; there is even a Facebook group with over 10,000 members. Few express any regrets, and most describe it as one of the most meaningful things they have ever experienced.
Payment is an issue that is controversial and opposed by many ethicists. Today, donors are prohibited by law from being paid or reimbursed in any way. However, there is some reasonable argument that financial compensation could be conceived in a way that would prevent exploitation of the socio-economically disadvantaged. Compensating donors would shorten the waiting time and save the health care system billions of dollars annually. For now, the only permissible donor benefit occurs if a previous donor needs a kidney transplant: allocation regulations for organs from deceased donors give priority to candidates on the waiting list who have given whole or segments of organs, so I’ve got that going for me.
It’s been a little over a year now since our surgeries. My creatinine has settled at a new baseline of 1.3, I feel well and am back to running, with a 2-inch scar just to the left of my belly button. It makes me really happy to see Chuck back at work, spending time with friends on campus and cheering on the teams. Personally, I feel proud that I had the courage to do this (I was TERRIFIED the morning of my nephrectomy) and can attest to the truth of the statement that the most meaningful things in life are those that require sacrifice. We are all interconnected, and doing for others leads to deepest joy and fulfillment. As physicians, we know that unpredictable and tragic things happen to people all of the time, and I don’t believe in living my life in a calculated way to try to outsmart the inevitable. Odds are that my remaining kidney won’t fail and that I will be fine and die of something completely unrelated when my time comes. I’m not worried about it.
So, what advice does Dr. Morrissey have for those preparing for a kidney transplant? Stay healthy. Keep your doctor’s appointments. Know it’s safe to donate. So is flying in an airplane, yet many get nervous. Deal with it by bringing a family member or friend for support.
Register as a potential deceased organ donor at the National Donate Life Registry.
Inquire about a living donation at Rhode Island Hospital RIH)
Https://www.lifespan.org/centers-service/transplant-center/living-kidney-donor-program/can-i-donate-kidney/donor-evaluation
