ADVOCACY IN HEALTH CARE
Karl E. Neumann made medical history last year as the second living HIV-positive person in the country to donate a kidney.
A nurse working 25 years in the transplant field, currently as IT coordinator for the kidney, pancreas and heart transplant programs at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, he knows the benefits of organ donation and has wanted to do it himself.
The HOPE (HIV Organ Policy Equity) Act made that possible in 2015, allowing clinical trials studying kidney and liver transplants from HIV-positive donors to HIV-positive recipients.
The trials progressed, first with deceased donors, then living ones, and “soon will be extended to all the solid organs,” Neumann said.
Once enrolled in the research study, he chose Duke University Medical Center for the procedure and “completed most of my evaluation in two days.”
“I had a couple of items that I needed to do — switch my HIV meds and wait three months, get some additional testing — that extended the evaluation, so overall it was a sixth-month process. It was not difficult at all.”
He wasn’t afraid of the surgery. “I was more worried about changing my HIV meds that I had been stable on for 10 years. It’s a potential risk of possible kidney complications in the future, but small with my new meds,” he said.
“It’s a routine surgery and completed laparoscopically. Everyone’s pain is different, but it was manageable. I went back to work in four weeks.”
As an advocate, he is the board secretary for Donate Life Virginia and a member of the Donate Life America Living Donor Committee. As a donor, he will be speaking at a transplant nursing conference in May.
He is listed as a co-author on an abstract with physicians from Duke and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, which performed the first U.S. history-making kidney transplant surgery from a donor living with HIV.
“The gay male population and especially the HIV-positive population are not allowed to donate blood, so most do not believe they can even register to donate (organs and tissue). This is a complete myth and an untapped resource.
“I think I am in a unique position to spread that message along with donation in general from a professional viewpoint — ‘If he thinks it’s safe, why not me’ — and help to reduce some HIV stigma to show we are normal, healthy individuals with a chronic disease … healthy enough to even donate an organ.”
