2019-08-01_Reader_s_Digest_AUNZ

READER’S DIGEST

T

ransplant recipient John

Bell knows exactly where

to find his first heart

• the damaged one he
  lived with for 72 years.
  It’s floating in an 11-litre jar of
  formaldehyde at a storage facility at
  Baylor University Medical Center in
  Dallas, Texas, along with hundreds
  of other human hearts.
  When he returns to the hospital
  for a check-up with his cardiologist,
  Bell contemplates paying his old
  heart a visit. Why? Because at
  Baylor, the retired professional can
  do something almost no one else
  in the world has ever done. He can
  hold his heart in his hands.
  “It was fairly emotional, that
  first encounter,” says Bell. “I can’t
  actuallyexplainwhy.”

An innovative programme reunites transplant

patients with their former organs

They Held

Their Own Hearts

BY Lauren Young

FROM ATLASOBSCURA.COM

Bell is one of more than 70

heart-transplant patients who have

participated in Baylor’s Heart-to-

Heart programme. It was launched

in 2014 by Dr William C. Roberts,

executive director of the Baylor

Heart and Vascular Institute. Baylor

is unique in allowing transplant

patients to ‘meet’ their old hearts.

“Probably 99.5 per cent of hospitals

throw the hearts away after they

send out a report,” Dr Roberts says.

“We keep them all.” They are used

for further research: performing

second pathological examinations,

comparing the progress of different

diseases among individual organs,

and doing long-range studies.

The Heart-to-Heart programme

happened almost by accident.

With all those organs stored on the

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

34 august 2019