UCLA patients featured in PBS documentary
Two UCLA Medical Center organ transplant recipients will be featured in a PBS special called “Greater Love.”
The documentary profiles several organ donor recipients, a donor family and the medical teams that treat them. The show airs tonight at 10 p.m.
The documentary was shot over three years and is narrated by actress Angela Lansbury.
The UCLA patients are Brian Hinsley, an L.A. fireman, and Bea Schweder. Hinsely waited nearly two years before a donor match for a new liver, and Schweder underwent surgery for a new heart after her husband had died from a heart attack just five weeks before.
Bea initially turned down the offer for the heart because she didn't want her sons to be orphaned should something happen to her. However, the doctors gave her 30 minutes to rethink her decision that day, and Bea eventually decided to take the heart.
Dr. Ronald Busuttil, professor and chief of UCLA’s Liver Transplant Unit, is interviewed in the documentary and describes the challenges involved in transplant surgery.
Bone Marrow Drive this week
The nationwide bone marrow drive is returning to UCLA this week.
Volunteers can sign up to be a potential marrow donor in the National Marrow Donor Program this Wednesday and Thursday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the Center for Health Sciences courtyard.
Registration is free, but to be eligible to register, potential donors must be between the ages of 18 and 60 and willing to donate marrow/stem cells if found to be a match.
There is a significant need for minority donors, and the event is cosponsored by the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association, the Latino Medical Student Association and the Student National Medical Association.
Briefs compiled from wire reports and Daily Bruin Staff.