Publisher: O'Reilly Media / Patient Centered Guides
Released: January 2000
Pages: 326
Over 64,000 people in the US are living in limbo, awaiting an organ transplant.
The good news about organ transplants is that they are becoming fairly routine surgical procedures. The even better news is that they do work miracles. People who have been in ill health for years often describe a feeling of being reborn after a transplant.
However, those families who have been told that a loved one needs a transplant to live are thrust into a strange land. Patients and families worry that no organ will be available to them. They may fear the surgery or what living with someone else's organ will feel like. They may have only a foggy idea of what staying with an immunosuppressive therapy regime after the operation will entail.
Organ Transplants: Making the Most of Your Gift of Life describes:
Deciding whether to have a transplant and choosing a transplant team
The importance of the screening interview
What factors go into determining a match, and what to do while waiting
Detailed information on heart and lung, liver, kidney and pancreas, and other transplants
Anti-rejection drugs and living with a transplant
Emotional responses and support
Specific situations such as living donors, transplants in children, meeting the donor family, etc.
Robert Finn, medical and scientific journalist and author, has interviewed dozens of patients, family members, medical caregivers, and transplant activists to present your family with the latest facts about transplantation--as well as the stories behind those facts.
Robert Finn graduated from the University of Chicago with an A.B. in biological sciences and intended to pursue a career as a research neuroscientist. After several years in graduate school, in the Department of Psychobiology at the University of California, Irvine, he realized that he preferred writing about science to actually doing it. Robert left with an M.S. degree to pursue a career as a science writer. For a number of years, he worked full-time at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, doing science writing for Caltech's research magazine and then for the news media, explaining scientific advances. Since 1992, Robert has been a full-time freelance writer. He has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications, including Discover, Men's Fitness, the Los Angeles Times, and The Scientist, where he is a contributing editor. Although he has written about practically all areas of science, he specializes in biomedicine and in science policy. He estimates that he has interviewed close to 1,000 scientists, physicians, and other experts during his career. Robert has been fascinated with the drug development process and clinical trials since college. Several years ago he worked for a contract research organization, writing chapters for highly technical books intended for scientists interested in clinical trials. Cancer Clinical Trials is Robert's first book. He is now working on a book on organ transplants.
