5 minute read
THE gIFT OF LIFE
transplant surgeon gives the gift of life
By Denny Angelle
Sherilyn Gordon spent her childhood in Kansas City, America’s heartland. Traveling frequently to visit relatives on the coasts and abroad, she was able to see the world around her. Far beyond the high, wooded ridges of Missouri, she discovered a country, and people living in it, in need of healing.
At a young age, she realized she was unlike her peers. “I was a first-generation American child of immigrant parents, living in the middle of the country during the 1970s,” she says. Her parents were from Jamaica — her father was a microbiologist and her mother taught high school English. An only child and an “ethnic kid who loved school,” she sensed there was a distinct place in society where her identity could be cultivated.
“Beyond my parents, there weren’t many role models who looked like me,” she says. “So I quickly learned that I could not rely on my physical or cultural similarities with people to determine who I would emulate or relate to.” Now a liver transplant surgeon for the Methodist Center for Liver Disease & Transplantation, Dr. Sherilyn Gordon Burroughs is one of only three practicing African-American female liver transplant surgeons in the country.
“When I was told that the process of becoming a surgeon would be difficult, if not impossible, I wanted it even more,” she says.
The path to becoming a physician led from Missouri through college in Washington, D.C., medical school in St. Louis and residencies and fellowships in Washington, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. Gordon Burroughs came to Methodist a year ago, from a faculty position at the UCLA Transplant Center in California. “While I like long-term interactions with patients, I thrive off the immediate gratification of seeing people get better quickly,” she explains. “As a transplant surgeon, I get that gratification when the organ comes out of ice and begins to work almost immediately in a patient. In medicine, it can’t get any more instant than that.”
Behind the numbers
But Gordon Burroughs acknowledges that only a small percentage of patients with failing organs can experience this miracle — and she sees so many more die waiting for an organ they will never receive.
She cites statistics showing that ethnic minorities are less willing to consent to donate organs, just as they are less likely to seek advanced medical care for treatable ailments. “The statistics repeatedly bear out this unfortunate trend,” says Gordon Burroughs, “but behind the numbers are people who are paralyzed by confusion and mistrust. They have a wrong idea about the inner workings of the transplant system.”
It is true that African-Americans receive fewer transplants overall, but it is not because of unfair practices. Minority populations are more susceptible to some diseases of the heart, kidney, liver, lung and pancreas that require transplantation, and as a result, African-Americans represent a higher proportion relative to the general population on some transplant lists. That means more African-Americans will die while waiting.
Kidney failure is two times more likely to affect African-Americans than any other ethnic group. So African-Americans make up 34 percent of the 90,000 Americans waiting for a
Dr. Sherilyn gordon Burroughs
kidney transplant and fewer than 17 percent of all donors. At least a third of these people will die waiting for an organ.
Gordon Burroughs knows that the way to rectify this situation is through education, but her suggestion is to begin in the places and institutions that people trust. “If you can get one person to understand the importance of organ donation, then that person can go back and share the message with family and friends,” she says.
Leveling the playing field
People of all ages and races can be organ donors. “We encourage everyone, young and old, to place their name on statewide donor registries to show medical personnel they have agreed to be a donor in the event of their death. But they must let family members know their intentions.
“The key is to get the conversation started, within your family, with your parents and siblings, neighbors and friends,” she says. Gordon Burroughs also finds that the use of patient advocates — people who have received transplants as well as donated their loved one’s organs — also help clear up misperceptions about organ donation.
The national organ allocation system is effective and fair, Gordon Burroughs says, because it levels the playing field so that anyone can receive an organ. “It’s the best system in
TRANSPLANT RECIPIENTS BY ETHNICITY JAN.1, 2000 - JULY 31, 2010
16,000 WHITE
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2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
DONORS BY ETHNICITY JAN.1, 2000 - JULY 31, 2010
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2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
the world,” she adds, “but the cruel fact is when there aren’t enough organs to go around, the system will have serious limitations.”
Gordon Burroughs feels that countering generations of mistrust will take an understanding of what she calls the “natural bias of the world.”
“We’re humans, and we weren’t meant to be homogenous. … When we encounter people like ourselves, people we can relate to, we often trust them the most, particularly in matters concerning our health” she says. “If I can relate to you as a patient, and you can relate to me as a doctor … if I can impart information in a culturally similar way, talk to you in a language you understand, then the message has the potential to be more effective.”
The transplant surgeon has seen this theory in action — when a patient is overjoyed to see a doctor who looks like him or her. “As painful as this bias may be, if you understand it as human nature, it can be used as a tool to save lives,” Gordon Burroughs says.
The heart of the problem, and perhaps the key to its solution, could be the lessons a little girl learned in the heartland of America. n
WAITING LIST BY ETHNICITY AS OF OCTOBER 15, 2010
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KIDNEY LIVER PANCREAS HEART LUNG
Source: Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network From left: Surgical assistant Majed Khalifa, and Drs. Sherilyn gordon Burroughs and Ashish Saharia prepare the donor liver for implantation.
