by AndersonsInfo 12 Replies latest watchtower medical
I just noticed that it was OrphanCrow who posted the medical ethics article from 2006. He also added some important information and context related to the original news item that Barbara started this thread with.
So thanks to you both. To Barbara for sharing the news story that started this discussion, and to OrphanCrow for providing the medical journal article that shows there is more to be considered than just catering to an individual's religious superstitions.
Thanks for the clarification, Undertheradar. Glad I was able to provide some context to such an important issue.
To add a little more context to the OP post Barbara made, and to round out my observation that the news story about Duke University Hospital reads like a "fluff" piece, I would imagine that a little positive media spin would be welcome for a university that is in the midst of a whistle blower scandal in their medical research department.
Mind you, the researcher at the center of that scandal isn't connected to the Bloodless Center at Duke Hospital (I don't think she is) but, it appears like the Potti name is familiar to Duke scandals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti
...and, it appears like Dr. Anil Potti has published papers that concern Jehovah's Witness patients (you can find those on google scholar). Obviously Anil Potti would have made it onto the HLC's "cooperative doctors" list that they so vigorously seek to expand and maintain.
So.
A nice little fluff piece that features a success in the Bloodless Department is a positive thing for Duke Hospital. A Bloodless Department that is run by a Jehovah's Witness - Bob Broomer.
Broomer likely would have had a hand in writing that news release - Broomer has co-authored papers with the doctor who conducted the heart transplant for the JW patient featured in the article. Dr. Nicole Guinn. So, knocking off a little media release like this would be a piece of cake for a Bloodless Center director/coordinator who has had Watchtower training.
Hmmmm...that 2006 article, concerning transfusion contracts for JW heart transplant recipients, could explain why this little item from Duke Hospital has significance.
Even though the first heart transplant for a JW was done in 1986, the medical literature has very few cases that follow that. I could find this one published in 1990, of five JW heart transplants in Houston Texas, the heartland of Denton Cooley:
http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/594899
Lots of other transplants in the years that follow, but no hearts.
Could it be that the ethical considerations that were highlighted in the journal article I linked were responsible for the silence in published medical journals for heart transplants in JWs for the past 15+ years? And that, indeed, a JW getting a heart is a big deal?
It isn't so much that a heart transplant is possible medically using bloodless methods. That is old news. Of course it is possible - been there, done that, ages ago, in the medical world.
What is a breakthrough, and noteworthy, is a JW patient jumping through the ethical hurdles and actually acquiring a donor heart.
