CHENNAI: “It is much harder to do the right thing every day when no one is looking. Donating a kidney is much easier.” Susan Hou only says that because she really believes that is true.
Seven-and-a-half years ago, Dr. Hou, a nephrologist at the University Medical Centre, Chicago, gave her kidney to her patient. “I've had patients ask me for a kidney, but the woman I finally gave it to never asked me. My only criterion was that I should give it to someone smaller than me, and that really narrows it down,” the rather petite nephrologist with a cracking sense of humour says. “The question is not why I did it, but what took me so long. There was much reluctance to use unrelated donors in the U.S. then,” Dr. Hou explains in a chat after a lecture on renal disorders in pregnancy organised by Tanker Foundation on Monday. The strongest criticism came from India, where people said women without rights would be forced to donate one of their kidneys to their husband. Now there are drugs to make unrelated transplants work too. Read more from "The Hindu"
