Donor Diaries
Donor Diaries is a podcast about the beauty and messiness of living organ donation. Get ready for some amazing stories about what happens when people decide to share their organs with other people, when people chose to share life. The sharing of kidneys and other organs is an incredibly fascinating topic that teaches a lot about kindness, love, and life! There are over 100,000 people on the kidney transplant waitlist today, and sadly about 13 people die each day waiting for a kidney that they never receive. One in three Americans are at risk for developing chronic kidney disease and one in nine already have kidney disease. Most don’t even know it. Donor Diaries shares unfiltered stories of kidney donation through the voices of living donors and straight talk from transplant experts who are committed to bringing the conversation of living organ donation to the forefront of society, so patients no longer have to die or suffer while waiting for a transplant.
Donor Diaries
Coffee and Kidneys with Al Roth | EP 20
Exchanging kidneys is a complicated process that involves multiple collaborations between kidney patients, living donors, transplant centers, insurance companies, airlines and more. It’s truly remarkable if you stop to think about the number of people and organizations that need to come together to make 1 paired exchange possible. We only started exchanging kidneys between non-compatible pairs a little over 20 years ago, so it’s a somewhat new process. Have you ever wondered how this was made possible?
Meet Nobel Laureate Al Roth who is an economist and Stanford University professor. Al designs markets. He’s one of the prominent players who has made kidney exchange possible. In a nutshell, his work has revolutionized kidney exchange around the world by using economic theory to make kidneys more available.
In October 2012, Al was the co-recipient of the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, together with Lloyd S. Shapley, for “ the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design."
Al Roth is well known for his application of economics to real world problems. In this podcast episode we touch a wide range of topics ranging from paired exchanges, prostitution, surrogacy, and more. All of these markets are examples of repugnant markets. Kidney Donation can be characterized as a repugnant market, and Al will tell us all about it!
Show Notes
Abundant/ CrowdSource for Life Film
Al Roth’s Blog
Al Roth’s Website
Freakonomics Make Me a Match Episode with Al Roth