A Surgeon Reflects On Death, Life And The ‘Incredible Gift’ Of Organ Transplant

Surgeons performed more than 21,000 kidney transplants and 8,000 liver transplants in 2018, according the United Network for Organ Sharing.

When Joshua Mezrich was a medical student on the first day of surgical rotation, he was called into the operating room to witness a kidney transplant.

What he saw that day changed him.

After the donor kidney came out of ice and the clamps on it were released, he says, “it turned pink and literally, in front of my eyes, this urine just started squirting out onto the field.”