Transplantation is a field of medicine that is still the subject of much ethical controversy and dispute. It is also surrounded by an aura of mystery and sometimes horror. One need only think of Michael Crichton's 1978 film Coma, which explores the 'urban legend' of doctors killing healthy patients in order to harvest organs from them. Andrzej Wajda's 1968 film Przekładaniec (Translator) refers to transplantology in a grotesque and humorous way.
Transplantologists enjoy social recognition and are often - like Zbigniew Religa in our country or Christiaan Barnard worldwide - also moral authorities. At the same time, as the example of the 'Dr G.' case shows, it is easy to arouse public distrust of transplants and transplantologists and to intensify references to the aforementioned 'urban legend'. The impact of this negative environment surrounding transplantology can be minimised by thorough education of citizens, including the doctors themselves. This can be based on scientific works which credibly discuss, apart from the medical aspects, also the ethical and philosophical aspects of transplantology. The publication by Piotr Nowak is, in my opinion, undoubtedly one of these works.
Extract from a review by Dr Kazimierz Szewczyk, Emeritus Professor at the Medical University of Łódź
