Symbolic considerations might also include, as mentioned earlier, the significance in different cultural traditions of specific internal organs and their relationship to personal identity, Even the medical literature in transplantation cites numerours cases donor’s self (e.g., personality characteristics, gender-related dispositions, ethnicity) is still present in the kidney, liver, heart, or lung that now resides in their bodies. Transplant organizations, on the one hand, wish to dispel such ideas to facilitate the psychological adjustment of the recipient. On the other hand, the same organizations publicize dramatic accounts of donor families meeting recipients and describing their sense that some part of their deceased loved one survives in the transplanted organ. This is a rich area for anthropological exploration.
A related research question is how cultural definitions of death, norms for the treatment of the dead, and notions of and afterlife complicate organ transplantation. In the United States, the shift from the traditional heart-based determination of death to the current dependence on evidence of brain activity began over thirty years ago (1968), and yet next of kin and medical staff alike still voice confusion and ambivalence about “brain death” (Joralemon 1995:340). Medical anthropologyists Margaret Lock and Christina Honed (1990; Lock 2002) have documented the wide-spread resistance in Japan to the idea of brain death and the impact this has had on the development of organ transplantation in that country. The treatment of the dead and its relationship to transplantation has been investigated as well in Germany (Hogle 1996) and Mexico (Crowley Matoka nd).
For Peruvian shamanism, I suggensted many research topics related specifically to the patients. Fox and Swazey (1974, 1992) have made significant contributions to the analysis of the transplant patient’s experience by focusing on the significance of receiving a “gift of life.” They use traditional social science theory about the socio-cultural significance of gift giving (e.g., Mauss 1954) to explain the core dilemma faced by transplant recipients: The gift they receive is of inestimable value (i.e., their own survival), but in is ultimately unrepayable. Fox and Swazey coined the phrase tyanny of the gift to capture the impact on recipients of being on the receiving end of a non reciprocal gift.
Lesley Sharp (1995) has studied transplant patients to see how they respond to having someone else’s organ in their body. This important line of inquiry builds on the already mentioned point about the symbolism of body parts. Organ transplantation offers a unique opportunity to explore the boundaries between “self” and “body,” especially when the body part being replaced carries significant cultural meanings (e.g., the heart for Americans).
There are other patient-related research issue to explore. For example, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the organization responsible for the equitable distribution of organs for transplantation in the United States, reports statistics the point to the impact of social class, gender, and ethnic divisions on everything from donation rates to the time patients spend on waiting lists. There is ample opportunity for social science analysis of these factors both at the macrolevel of national socioeconomic trends and at the microlevel of individual experiences.
Biological and cultural perspectives might be brought to bear on the question of how transplant centers match donor organs to potential recipients. Advances in antirejection drugs permit less than perfect matches between donors and recipients, but there is still evidence that shows longer graft survival when blood types and human leukocyte antigens are matched. Segments of the population with comparatively unusual blood types and/or unlikely antigen matches spend longer on the transplant waiting list when a high priority is assigned to closer matches.
The problem has been especially acute for African Americans, who suffer at disproportionate rates from diseases for which transplantation may be the best or only treatment (e.g., cardiovascular and kidney diseases). Unfortunately, African Americans also have blood types and antigens that are less common in the organ donor pool (e.g., 27 percent of African Americans have blood type B, compared with just 11 percent among Caucasians) (Kasiske et al. 1991). Relatively low organ donation rates from the African American community further reduce the likelihood of a match (Callener et al. 1995). The result is that African Americans can wait for an organ twice as long as Caucasians (Callender 1991).
The interesting issue for a medical anthropologist is how the biological notion of donor-recipient “matching” actually works in transplant allocation systems around the world. What constitutes a “good match” versus the “best match” (e.g., how many antigens should correspond) and how long are patients allowed to deteriorate on a waiting list before they are given an organ even when the match is poor? What factors other than tissue matching might account for differential graft survival? Is the reliance on strict matching evidence of racial bias in the allocation system? These questions require that attention be paid to both biological and cultural issues.
The outcome of shamanic treatment was on the agenda for research with the Peruvian patients. There is an immense literature on this subject for transplant recipients, but almost all of it is based on surveys or brief, structured questionnaires. Anthropologists recognize the shortcomings of these formal research instruments, especially when the topic under consideration is as complex as the “quality of life” of persons who have undergone a medical treatment as dramatic as the removal and replacement of none or more vital organs. A supplemental approach using qualitative methods would be a significant contribution (Joraelmon and Fujinaga 1996).