The Greatest of All Gifts - Organ Donation

Beverly Hurwitz's newest novel peeks into the world of transplants

PARK CITY, Utah, Dec. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- When a troubled teenager has a fatal car accident, a young mother hopes that her child's donated organs will save others. She never imagines the impact her deceased daughter's DNA might have on the lives of multiple organ recipients.

The Tale of a Transplanted Heart, opens a window into the phenomenon of transplant medicine, where "only twenty percent of potential donor hearts actually get to a recipient on time, and only about ten percent of patients waiting for a new heart are lucky enough to get one in time."

Doctor Hurwitz's fifth medical mystery also pulls a curtain back on infectious disease research, where scientists try to reprogram the DNA of lethal germs to make them less harmful. A breaking news story from December 2024 indicates that hundreds of samples of deadly viruses have been missing from an Australian research lab since 2021, and nobody knows what happened to them. Along with that revelation, this contemporary novel may provoke the reader to wonder if COVID could have been a designer virus, and if so, was its escape from a lab accidental? Too often, research scientists can get sucked into vicious competition for funding, investor pressure to produce the next blockbuster vaccine, lab accidents, and the creation of biologic weaponry.

The Tale of a Transplanted Heart also explores the phenomenon of "cellular memory." As transplant medicine has grown, increasing numbers of organ recipients are reporting the development of emotions, preferences and memories that are not their own. After the dedicated scientist in this story exhibits personality changes following his transplant, his physician wife can barely recognize the person her husband has become. His associates become afraid of his capacity to manipulate dangerous viruses. His transplant coordinators struggle to protect the identity of his deceased donor and her family.

The Tale of a Transplanted Heart also whips up grievances about the business takeover of American health care. Set in a struggling rural hospital, just acquired by a for-profit corporation, doctors in this story start to fear for their patients' lives when new administrators ignore an increasing incidence of mysterious, life-threatening infections.

Tragically, this holiday season, some people will lose loved ones. Depending on circumstances, those people might have the option of giving the greatest of all gifts: sight to a blind person, skin to a burn victim, legs to an amputee, and a new lease on life for people who are dying from failure of a vital organ.

The Tale of a Transplanted Heart is available in paperback and kindle editions with reading samples, along with other books by Beverly Hurwitz M.D. at
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=books+by+beverly+hurwitz

Contact:      Beverly Hurwitz M.D.,
                   Author
                   435.901.2783    
                   [email protected] 

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SOURCE Beverly Hurwitz MD