Rest In Peace Ronald Lee Herrick - first successful living donor

[AguynamedKim]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40840342/ns/health-health_care/

updated 12/29/2010 10:48:13 AM ET 2010-12-29T15:48:13

AUGUSTA, Maine — A man who donated a kidney to his dying twin brother 56 years ago in what's recognized as the world's first successful organ transplant has died.

Ronald Lee Herrick died Monday at the Augusta Rehabilitation Center in Maine. He was 79. His wife, Cynthia, said his health deteriorated after undergoing heart surgery in October.

Herrick donated a kidney to his twin brother, Richard, at what is now Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Because they were identical twins, there was no problem with rejection. The United Network for Organ Sharing says it was the first successful organ transplant.

The operation on Dec. 23, 1954, kept Herrick's brother alive for eight years. Lead surgeon Dr. Joseph Murray went on to win a Nobel Prize.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

[greg10]

From Dr. Murray's Nobel lecture 1990:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1990/murray-lecture.html

At the conclusion of our last pre-operative discussion, the donor (Ronald Herrick) asked whether the hospital would be responsible for his health care for the rest of his life if he decided to donate his kidney. Dr. Harrison***, the surgeon for the donor, said, "Of course not." But he immediately followed with the question, "Ronald, do you think anyone in this room would ever refuse to take care of you if you needed help?" Ronald paused, and then understood that his future depended upon our sense of professional responsibility rather than on legal assurances.

Dr. Murray is still living:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Murray
In 1959, he performed the world's first successful allograft and, in 1962, the world's first cadaveric renal transplant. Throughout the following years, Murray became an international leader in the study of transplantation biology, the use of immunosuppressive agents, and studies on the mechanisms of rejection. In the 1960s, the discovery of anti-rejection drugs such as azathioprine allowed Murray to carry out transplants from unrelated donors.