Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Successful Penis Transplant Surgery Raises Unusual Questions
Stat: How Do You Ask Grieving Parents To Donate Their Son's Penis?
He had already been talking to the grieving family for hours when he got the call from his bosses at the New England Organ Bank. The patient who had just died, they said, looked like a good candidate to donate more than just his kidneys and lungs. Would the family be willing to donate his penis? Even under normal circumstances, Daniel Miller-Dempsey’s job can sound impossible. When a patient is declared brain-dead, but is still on life support, he asks the family about removing their loved one’s organs and putting them into other people. The patient’s lungs are still breathing, the heart still pumping, the skin still pulsing with blood. “You have to have a family get to a point where they understand that [their loved one] has died, even though they look the same as they did the day before,” he said. (Boodman, 5/20)
The Associated Press: New Penis Recipient Looks Forward To Being A 'Complete' Man
The recipient of the nation's first penis transplant says he is looking forward to walking out of the hospital a "complete" man. "There is no doubt in my mind that everything is going to work. And I mean everything," 64-year-old Thomas Manning said Wednesday with a grin as he continued to recover at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. "You can interpret that any way you wish." (5/19)
