Thousands Wait For A Kidney Transplant
 Rosemary Plybon

Winston-Salem, NC -- Kevin Jordan hopes to be back on the Wake Forest campus next fall, and playing baseball for the Deacons next spring. If all goes as planned, he can thank his coach for making that happen.

Dr. Patricia Adams with Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center says a lot of people make good candidates for living organ donation. She says if the blood types are the same, and the potential donor is in good health, it could be a match.

Living donors can give a kidney, a lobe of the liver or a lobe of the lung to a patient. She says the donor usually does very well after the surgery, and sees few if any complications.

In 2009, 6,400 people donated kidneys, but 4,600 patients died waiting for one. WFUBMC did more than 200 kidney transplants last year.