1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
"How Christina Saved 11 Lives" by Marina Khidekel.
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Published in the March, 2010, issue of Glamour.
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
"How Christina Saved 11 Lives" introduced Glamour readers to the new and as yet little-reported phenomenon of kidney transplant chains. It tells the story of Christina Do, a young woman who decided to donate a kidney to a complete stranger and ended up saving 11 people's lives — and of the 22 people whose lives she touched forever. About 83,000 people in the U.S. are on a waiting list for a kidney. Around 4,500 of them die each year, and thousands more require often debilitating dialysis treatments. Christina Do sparked the longest kidney chain ever started by a woman and the second longest ever at the time the March 2010 issue went to press. (Long kidney transplant chains began to take place only two years prior to the Glamour piece — the matching technology that enables lengthy chains simply didn't exist before. The chains work like this: Someone who needs a kidney is matched with a stranger willing to donate one. To get a kidney, the patient must find a friend or relative willing to donate one to someone else, and so on. The chain started by Do spanned 22 people — 11 donors and 11 recipients — and four hospitals over seven months.) Only when the writer, Marina Khidekel, reported this story and told Do about the chain did Do realize the broad-reaching results of her actions; the same held true for many of the chain's participants and their loved-one donors. The 14 chain members, including Do, who were able to attend Glamour's photo session met for the first time at the shoot at NewYork-Presbytarian Hospital in November 2009. The level of emotion was overwhelming.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
The writer started by contacting Garet Hil, the founder of the National Kidney Registry, the groundbreaking nonprofit that developed the blood-and-antigen-matching software that made long kidney chains possible, and the one that organized Christina Do's chain. Once Do was on board to tell her story, Khidekel began the painstaking process of contacting each of the other 21 chain members, who had been spread out among four New York — area hospitals. Each hospital's chain coordinators (as well as press contacts, health professionals and a surgeon integral to the chain) were interviewed in order to verify the exact order of the chain, the hospital where each surgery took place and the chronological order and timeline of the chain. Every patient was contacted by their hospital and asked to sign a hospital release form before they could be approached by Glamour's writer. This process took months. Statistics about kidney patients were acquired from the United Network for Organ Sharing and the National Kidney Foundation.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
As each patient signed the hospital release form, writer Khidekel contacted him or her to ask for his/her participation in the piece. A few declined for privacy reasons, but most, when they learned about the stunning scope of their chain, enthusiastically got on board — they wanted to spread the word about kidney transplant chains and their capacity to save lives. Khidekel spoke extensively to each participant featured in the piece, including several who were willing to be interviewed but could not attend the photo shoot. A few of the participants required a translator. As the reporting proceeded, it became clear that this was a special group. Do's transplant chain brought together a cast of characters worthy of an ensemble film: a New Jersey bassist whose band has opened a rock festival for Motley Crue; a hipster psychotherapist in Brooklyn; a volunteer nurse for Operation Smile; a globe-trotting Manhattan advertising executive; and a Brooklyn hip-hop dancer, among others. The youngest recipient was a 20-year-old college student with a habit of posting cute-guy sightings on Facebook; the oldest, a 73-year-old retired teacher who spent much of her life working with imprisoned teens. Also interviewed were NKR founder Garet Hil; the chain coordinators from several of the hospitals involved in this chain, including Marian Charlton, R.N., chief transplant coordinator for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Transplant Center; Pat McDonough, living donor transplant chain coordinator at Montefiore Medical Center; and Sandip Kapur, M.D., chief of transplant surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Transplant Center. A sidebar featured Colleen Conway of Nashville, another young woman who became an organ donor.
6. Results (if any).
When Glamour ran the story, we knew it would elicit some emotional reactions. After all, the dek stated: "When one brave young woman gave a total stranger a second chance at life, her generous act had more profound consequences than she'd ever imagined. What act of kindness — big or small — will this story inspire you to do?" But we never anticipated a response like this: Dozens of readers wrote to tell us how touched they were. Many of them had a loved one who needed a kidney. Many others told us they were considering donating a kidney after reading the piece. And, remarkably, two women actually did it, and a third has started the process. One of the two, Brenda Clancy of California, picked up a Glamour while getting a manicure; by the time she finished the story she was physically shaking, having made up her mind that her coworker would be the recipient of her kidney. The second one, Tracy Murphy of Iowa, wrote to us: "I wanted to tell you how inspired I was by the article. After reading it, I began the process and, last month, had surgery to donate my kidney. I was so excited to find out that it went to a 12-year-old girl. She has a hereditary kidney disease and was unable to receive a kidney from a family member. We met soon after the surgery and are both doing well. Your article had a huge impact on my life — and many others, too! Thanks!" Melissa Arlio is just beginning this journey.
Inspired by the story, she started a blog: Consider the Stars: Anatomy of a Living Kidney Donor. This passage is from her first post in November 2010, titled, "Because I Can": "I've always felt the desire to do something bigger than myself& I give blood and I try to donate to various charities when I can, but as a struggling, at-the-beginning-of-her-career 20-something-year-old trying to forge her way through life on her own for the first time, money in amounts large enough to make a true difference is hard to come by. I wasn't sure what else I could do, until I read the [March] 2010 issue of Glamour — specifically this article [Link to How Christina Saved 11 Lives]. Flipping through the magazine one lazy Sunday, I came across this story & and something caught my eye — or rather, my heart. I read it not once, but twice, and by halfway through the second read, I knew I was going to donate a kidney — and hopefully set off a chain just like Christina Do did. After all, why save one life when you can save many?"
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
In Glamour's December 2010 issue, which featured our annual Women of the Year package, the masthead was devoted to staffers' own "woman of the year." Khidekel, a contributor at the time of the original story (she is now a Glamour articles editor), proudly declared her hero to be Brenda Clancy, the first reader who donated a kidney after reading the piece. There were no corrections or clarifications to the story, nor any challenges to its accuracy.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Khidekel says: "A story with this many subjects is, in many ways, daunting to undertake. But if you find one that speaks to you like this one spoke to me, pursue it with every shred of effort that you have. This piece took the better part of a year to piece together — and it was no easy puzzle. At times, it was slow going and frustrating, which may come as no surprise to anyone who has had to maneuver through hospital red tape. Hospitals are extremely protective of information relating to their patients and procedures. It took much convincing to persuade the four hospitals involved to not only agree to participate in the reporting process but to file the paperwork so patients could do so, and to dispatch forms to each of the 22 patients involved in this particular chain. Every phone call, voice mail message, follow-up call and e-mail was worth it. If you uncover a story that has the potential to save people's lives, especially one that has been as under-reported as kidney transplant chains were, jump on it and see it through."