A person's social status should not be a consideration. If so, you're playing God.

Power and fame do not get you a new liver, some cash and a lot of smarts does help though. Steve Jobs spent the time and money to be signed up at many organ donor banks. But when the algorithm is run when there is a liver available you have to be lucky and very sick. Jobs almost died and so he met one criteria. He was also lucky to match. Did he "game" the system because he signed up at car crash rich/recipient poor Tennessee?

Would you go to 6 different institutes and do a complete blood workup, counseling, ultrasounds, CT scans, EKG, and colonoscopy to raise your odds?

Walter Payton was unlucky. He also might not have been smart enough to multilist. Every year there are about 15,000 on the list and 5,000 get new livers. You just have to double your odds, then be in the almost dead cohort and also match the donor.


On the flip side, this is the Untied States with no national health care, nothing to level the playing field. Money and the smarts to use that money will always tip the scales a bit to the rich.

That has nothing to do with it. Any clinic caught receiving money so that the recipient is moved up the list would be decertified in a heartbeat.

A person's social status should not be a consideration. If so, you're playing God.

I strongly disagree - no ones playing god.

Organ transplants - are a rare commodity and thus is not something you just pass around like apples <- pun intended you also have to consider that this rare commodity has the best success (and the best survival rate)

Keep in mind there are 3 people involved
1 - Patient - Jobs in this case.
2 - The donor
3 - The patient that did not get the transplant.

Now using my extreme example.
1 - Patient - Gang banger in this case, who dies in a gang bang shoot out
2 - Donor
3 - The patient who did not get the transplant and later dies.
Now you have 3 dead people and a lost healthy liver.

The ideal is to save lives with the best possible longevity - thats NOT playing God thats making the best possible decision to make the best possible use of a rare commodity.

Where's that head spinning graphic when I need it?

But if you use a decision making process that takes in the societal worth of the individual you are indeed playing God.

Does gang banger get typed into the algorithm? Does CEO? How about Hawaiian? They obviously contribute less to society since they just hang out on and island.

You can't. It doesn't work that way. Jobs will have a higher chance since he can spend the time and money to jet around and get on more lists but the gang banger gets the liver if he matches the algorithm when it is run.

Theres a National list I believe, or there was sometime ago.

Steve does not need to jet around to get on a list

Steve used his jet to get to the hospital for the procedure, which I believe has a time limit. Where you or I would be out of luck, more so me, since you are much closure. Maybe thats where people feel used his money and power? ?

Being first on the list does not mean you get the first liver that shows up - You must be able to match it, blood type yada yada and make it there in time.

Most folks are already in a hospital. If there is a liver match, the liver is flown to the patient.

I believe there were residency requirements ( perhaps for some kind of higher priority status ), so Jobs would have had the wherewithall and money to establish multiple residences.

Something like that - Not quite sure, though.

Ed

Not 100% sure there is a shelve life of the liver something like 6 hours, so having it flown to a hospital and including the operation <- really cuts down list choices.

Steve was able to get on a jet and get there in time - simple as that.

Keep in mind that Steve was NOT sitting in a hospital either, just waiting for one to be flown in <--- RIGHT --> if so that would have happened instead of Steve having to fly out there to begin with.