Murray Lecture Offers Insights into Brazil Organ Donation; Tribute to Murray

Editor's Note: BWH mourns the loss of Joseph Murray, MD, who passed away Nov. 26, 2012. Read more about him in this BWH Bulletin article and on Legacy.com, where many who were touched by Murray have shared their memories and condolences. 

This fall's sixth annual Joseph E. Murray Visiting Professor in Surgery Lecture was especially meaningful. It was held on Nov. 6, just weeks before Murray passed away on Nov. 26 at age 93. Murray was thrilled to attend the lecture, seated in the front row with his wife, Bobbi, and chatting with physicians as they entered the Bornstein Amphitheater.

"It's wonderful we can continue the tradition that Dr. Murray started here at Brigham and Women's Hospital in transplantation," said Stefan G. Tullius, MD, chief of Transplant Surgery, as he welcomed the Murrays and others to the event.

This year's lecture focused on growth in transplantation outside of the U.S., with a lecture presented by Jose O. Medina Pestana, MD, PhD, FCRS, head of the Renal Transplant Division at Hospital do Rim in Brazil.

"It's like the gift of a lifetime for me to be a Joseph Murray Visiting Professor," remarked Medina, who began his lecture by reciting a favorite quote of Murray's: "Difficulties are opportunities."

Medina presented to a packed Bornstein Amphitheater about the challenges and opportunities for organ transplantation in Brazil, the fifth most populous country in the world.

One element of Medina's talk focused on the creative ways that Brazil has established a "culture of donation." He provided several examples: an educational campaign during Carnival, Brazil's popular annual festival; working with leaders in the religion and health care sectors to spread the word; and partnering with writers of a popular soap opera to incorporate a story line involving organ donation.

"They did even better. They had a character on the show die because there was no organ donor available," he said.

Medina's honor to be named a Murray Visiting Professor received media attention in Brazil, with a Sao Paulo newspaper article penned by Silvano Raia, a transplant surgeon who performed the first living donated liver transplant.