Three health stories from 2024 that made me smile

As 2024 comes to a close, I’d like to highlight three recent healthcare stories that put a smile on my face.

The first is from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio. Their transplant surgery team recently completed a record-breaking combination of… 20 transplant operations as part of a “chain” to match compatible donors with the right recipients.

For example, suppose that Mrs. Adams needed a kidney and that her husband, Mr. Adams, was willing to donate one of his kidneys to her, but he was not a good match for tissue. Likewise, Mrs. Baker needed a kidney and Mr. Baker was willing to donate a kidney, but he was also no match for his wife. An appropriate matching algorithm could find suitable combinations so that Mr. Baker can safely donate his kidney to Mrs. Adams (and Mr. Adams to Mrs. Baker) so that everyone benefits. Neither couple alone could meet their partner’s needs, but by working together, everyone wins.

In the recent Ohio State University example, surgeons were able to find a “chain” of ten recipients (and ten donors), so that each recipient received a compatible kidney from a suitable donor. As expected, everything had to work well for the chain to succeed. The transplant team performed twenty operations in two days (ten operations to remove the kidneys from the donors and another ten to place the kidneys in the recipients). As the medical team noted: “A change in health status, as simple as a cold or fever, could have broken the exchange.”

Stanford professor Alvin Roth Won a Nobel Prize in 2012 for his work developing matchmaking methods as used by the organ transplant team. If you’d like to see a fascinating video with husband-and-wife team Drs. Dorry Segev and Sommer Gentry on the mathematics and biology of transplant matchmaking, I highly recommend this short 21-minute documentary: “The right match.”

The second story came from Rose Hospital in Denver, Colorado. The hospital uses specially trained therapy dogs to help medical staff deal with stress and burnout. For example, gynecologist Dr. Kristina Fraser was able to spend a few minutes petting one of the therapy dogs just before he had to attend to an emergency pregnancy delivery. The dogs help doctors, nurses and other medical providers enjoy a much-needed ‘calming moment’ before moving on to the next task.

Heck, I felt calmer just listening to the story.

NPR’s full story Morning edition is available here.

My final feel-good story of 2024 is that we eradicated “murder hornets” in the US. These giant hornets can be very deadly to humans and can also cause enormous damage to honey bee hives. According to Sven Spichigermanager of the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s pest program: “I have to tell you, as an entomologist, I’ve been doing this for over 25 years now, and it’s a rare day when man actually wins one. against the insects.”

2025 will undoubtedly bring a new set of challenges (and opportunities). But for now, we can look back at 2024 and enjoy some health successes. Happy New Year to everyone!