Events

Attend via Zoom
Passcode: Seminar

Martha Gershun will discuss her decision to donate a kidney to a stranger and the long, complicated process that finally led to a successful surgery nine months later.  She will use the story to illustrate the ethical issues that arise in using one person’s body parts to save the life of another, as well as the medical, financial, and psychosocial barriers that make it difficult to donate and may exacerbate health disparities. She will offer suggestions about ways the medical community could thoughtfully and safely reduce the burdens on living donors, shortening the waiting list for transplants and saving lives.

Martha Gershun is a nonprofit consultant, writer, and community volunteer. Previously she was Executive Director of Jackson County CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and the Reach Out and Read National Center. She is author of Care & Custody: A Novel of Three Children at Risk, and her work has appeared in The Kansas City Star and The New York Times Magazine. In 2018 she donated a kidney at the Mayo Clinic to a woman she read about in the newspaper and co-authored an account of her experience, Kidney to Share. Follow her on Twitter @mgershun.