Face Donor's Wife Has No Regrets

(CBS/AP)  The wife of a Massachusetts man whose tissue was donated for the nation's second face transplant said her husband told her before heart transplant surgery that he wanted to donate his organs if he didn't survive the operation.

Susan Whitman told The Boston Globe for a story in Wednesday's editions that she was surprised, however, when organ bank officials asked if she would approve of the donation of Joseph Helfgot's face.

Whitman and their four children held a conference call and quickly agreed it was the "right thing to do."

"You wish, on so many levels, that you don't have to make this decision, but how can you deny someone else a chance at [a normal] life?" Whitman told the Globe.

Helfgot, 60, learned to appreciate the value of life from his Holocaust survivor parents, friends and family said.

"It's easy to sign up and say you are an organ donor," Whitman said. "It's another to have your family understand and facilitate that. It's painful and it takes strength and a will to do it."

Helfgot never woke up after his April 5 heart transplant and the face operation took place on April 9, the day before Helfgot's funeral.

"He would be happy to know he went out with a bang," she said.

The recipient's identity hasn't been released, but Whitman said she would one day like to meet the man who received her husband's nose, roof of his mouth, upper lip, facial skin, muscles and nerves. Doctors have said the recipient will not look like the donor because his bone structure is different.

Helfgot grew up in New York City's Lower East Side and went on to become a sociology professor at Boston University by age 23. He later founded MarketCast, one of Hollywood's leading research companies.

Whitman said she went public with her story because she hoped to inspire others to become organ donors.

[Memesfamily]

It is good for families to talk about this before the person dies. My mother was such a loving person. She said she had enjoyed being with and seeing her children, grandchildren and even great grands that she wanted her eyes donated so that someone else could have that joy, too. Unfortunately, when she was killed in an auto accident AT AGE 81 she was almost totaly blind and cancer had ruined her other organs or they were torn up in the accident so her wishes couldn't be done.
My brother in law had told us he didn't want to be a donor and it was very hard on us trying to deal with all the calls for donations when he died from an accidental fall.
Then my young nephew who had been disabled from grandmal seizures all his life had told us he wanted every part of his body that could be used to help someone living and what couldn't be used then to be given to Baylor in Houston for research. He suddenly died from an undetected hereditary heart problem. Some of his skin went to the burn hospital for burn victims transplants. Some bone for needed bone grafts, and every vital organ went to help someone except his heart of course . There was no confusion there because he had told the family what he wanted.
So my family knows the feelings from both sides. And we have talked among ourselves so that we all are pretty well informed about what the other family members want in case of their death.
Some families find it hard to talk about anything like that so it really helps for a family member who wants to be a donor to let his family know what he wants and no one should be made to feel bad if they don't want to donate .

[peacefulperson]

peaceful person- you sound wonderful...could a living will make a difference? Posted by rrozsa at 3:07 PM : Apr 15, 2009
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I have a living will AND a durable power of attorney for health care, but neither of them can legally determine the disposal of my organs after I die in the state I live in. In this state, organ donation is exclusively determined by the next of kin. There is no kind of paperwork that circumvents the wishes of the next of kin here.

[SusanStoHelit]

Butterfly - I'm familiar with the Gregory Jacobs case. Everything I've read says that is some grieving parents taken in by some attorneys and one paperwork error that incorrectly recorded the time he was found brain dead. Every bit of hospital paperwork, every doctor, agrees that he was found brain dead at one time, before the parents were asked about organ donation - but one piece of paperwork had the time wrong. That's all there is to that case. Parents wishing there was an alternative, scared they made the wrong decision, and attorneys taking advantage of that fear.

[butterflync]

"there's never been a case where it's been found that any doctor failed to do the best they could to save someone based on them being an organ donor"

Susan, unfortunately, cases do exist. Check out the case of Gregory Jacobs, a young vibrant teenager who died after a snowboarding accident: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/16/earlyshow/health/main4868744.shtml

I am signed up as an organ donor myself. BUT I am not naiive enough to think that there are not abuses in the system and that there aren't some corrupt folks out there that will see opportunity and take advantage.

[rixmix98]

We are hearing a lot about heros these days. Susan Whitman and her family are heros in my book for doing this. God Bless them, and may they take great comfort in knowing that their kindness and unselfishness will forever be remembered.
Posted by raflin1 at 6:54 PM : Apr 15, 2009

Amen raflin1, Amen!

[ToolMangler1]

It's illegal for the doctor caring for you to be involved in any way in the organ donation - cannot be any part of it - so they've got no motivation beyond caring for you, until such a point where care is futile.
Posted by SusanStoHelit at 4:40 PM : Apr 15, 2009



NO!!! Resistance is futile!!

[ToolMangler1]

Helfgot never woke up after his April 5 heart transplant and the face operation took place on April 9, the day before Helfgot's funeral.




I wonder why???? being a donor might be a death warrant..

[SusanStoHelit]

It'd be the one consolation to dying, since we all must die someday - the idea that my organs might be used to give someone else another shot at life. My heart could save the father of two young children from dying while they are still in Elementary school. Corneas will let a grandparent see their grandkids. Liver and kidneys might save someone's wife, someone's child, and other good people. If someone needs a face transplant - I'm game for that. I'm dead - my corpse holds no value to me beyond that it can help another person.

[SusanStoHelit]

rrozsa - there's never been a case where it's been found that any doctor failed to do the best they could to save someone based on them being an organ donor. Zero cases. I am an organ donor, and I've told everyone - there is no fear in me of any doctor failing to do right by me.

It's illegal for the doctor caring for you to be involved in any way in the organ donation - cannot be any part of it - so they've got no motivation beyond caring for you, until such a point where care is futile.

[common2cents]

peaceful, see a lawyer about that. You can have someone assigned power of attorney after you die for the purposes of conttrolling your body