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Tell Us About Your Experience With the Organ Transplant System

ProPublica is looking to hear from patients, medical providers and regulators as part of an ongoing investigation.

Kristi Ouimet comforts her 2-year-old son Matthew as he receives an IV in preparation for a liver and kidney transplant at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco in 2013. (Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images)

Every year, thousands of Americans facing organ failure try to get a transplant. Many of these are successful. But some experiences with the process of getting a new organ — including kidneys, livers, hearts and lungs — go wrong. The rates of success differ depending on which hospital replaces your organ, according to data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.

Problems with organ transplants can occur before a transplant, during surgery or after the procedure. Medical experts said that issues might stem from failing to document that a donor’s blood type is compatible with the recipient or medical errors during surgery. When problems do occur within a transplant center, the process to investigate what went wrong is often confidential, making it hard to tell if that center has addressed the safety risks for patients.

We want to speak with transplant recipients who have experienced problems with their treatment, as well as family members who lost loved ones as a result of a transplant. We also want to speak with medical providers or regulators familiar with the process to better understand how safety problems within transplant centers are investigated.

Will you help ProPublica reporter Max Blau learn about the organ transplant process? If you have insights that could help guide our reporting, please fill out our brief questionnaire below.

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY: We appreciate you sharing your story, and we take your privacy seriously. We are gathering these stories for the purposes of our reporting, and we will not publish your name or information without your consent.

We are the only ones reading what you submit. If you would prefer to use an encrypted app, see our advice at propublica.org/tips. You can message Max Blau on Signal at 224-436-2120 or max.blau@propublica.org.

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