The Blood Conservation Specialist at Duke University Medical Center, Bob Broomer, is a Jehovah's Witness.
There are likely more JWs who work at that center.
This article reads like a fluff piece - it is my guess that it is based on a WT generated press release. Probably.
The article gives very little information other than to say - oh, look! we can transplant hearts into JWs. This isn't big news. The first published case of a heart transplant in a JW happened over 30 years ago - 1986 in Los Angeles.
What is interesting, though, about JWs and transplants, is that ethical considerations concerning the stewardship of the transplanted organ can be problematic. As the article that was posted says, doing a bloodless transplant is possible, but the care of that organ after transplantation is what the article doesn't talk about.
What happens when a JW receives an organ but, later, that patient requires a "rescue transfusion"? Is it fair to other patients, who are waiting for an organ, to have a JW get one but then, because of their refusal to receive blood to maintain that organ's health, that organ becomes non-viable? Is it ethical to bypass people who will do all they can to keep that organ alive, including a blood transfusion and then, give a good organ to a JW only to lose that organ when blood is required?
This following paper, published in 2006, addresses the concerns that a medical team has when considering a JW for a transplant and the author of this paper proposes that "Jehovah's Witnesses should be required to sign transfusion contracts in order to be eligible for transplant."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2565779/
Human donor organs (living and cadaveric) continue to be in short supply, and many potential transplant recipients die while waiting for an allograft to become available.1 Because the organ supply is so limited and the offering of organs is based on the generosity of patients and families, proper stewardship of these organs is an ethical obligation for transplant teams, as well as organ recipients. Preventable graft loss must be protected against, and factors that foster preventable graft loss—for example, non‐compliance must be proactively contemplated when patients are reviewed as potential transplant candidates. Post‐transplant treatment refusal is one example of behaviour that can compromise transplant success.
The author describes how they approach an alcoholic patient, for example, who needs a liver transplant. The patient is required to sign a contract that their behavior will not put their new organ at risk - they agree not to drink. This is a more complicated process than I describe and the paper at the link goes into a lot of detail concerning why a transfusion contract would make good sense when giving an organ to a JW.
Basically, transplant teams have told patients that they must sign a transfusion contract before they can accept an organ - the transfusion may be necessary to keep that organ alive - without a transfusion, the organ can end up being wasted.
In tackling the dilemma of Jehovah's Witnesses as transplant candidates, the concept of rescue transfusion (clinically urgent and essential blood transfusion) has been posed. At the University of Pisa (Italy), transfusion contracts are required for patients receiving kidney and/or pancreas transplants.
(good article at link...worth the read for those interested)
It is quite likely that this problem has been encountered at several institutions over the past 30 years - the difficulty encountered in acquiring organs for patients who will not consent to a procedure that may be needed to save that organ.
Organs are in high demand and there is a short supply of them - transplanting an organ into a patient who refuses to take care of it is problematic.
I think that is part of the reason behind this article about Duke Medical Center (which was one of the early bloodless centers to be established by Jehovah's Witnesses). It wouldn't surprise me if the ethical problem of stewardship of the transplanted organ has come up many times with JWs. They need this article to convince the people waiting on an organ, who have been bypassed by JWs, that the organ they didn't get is going to survive the procedure. Nothing in the Duke article about what happens to that organ after surgery though. Nothing about what happens when that JW patient with a brand new donated heart requires a rescue transfusion.
