How LifeGift seeks the gift of life to transform grief into joy

It would be hard to argue that anything could be more emotionally charged than the act of taking a heart, liver or kidney from someone who has just died and implanting it in another person who needs it in order to survive.
“Those of us who have worked in the field for a long time, every time we have an organ donation case and all the patients get transplants on time and everything works out well and they walk out of the hospital, I always go, ‘God, what a miracle this is,’” says Kevin Myer, president and CEO at LifeGift.
Miracles are what Myer and his team at LifeGift chase every day. And “chase” is probably the optimal word to describe the organ transplant process. A heart can be preserved for four to six hours, a liver for six to eight hours and a kidney for 24 to 36 hours. In each case, the odds of the transplant working improve when the transition time is reduced.
“You’re definitely trying to move things along,” Myer says. “We’re running around the clock.”
LifeGift is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that seeks to help individuals needing transplants in 109 counties across Texas. It is a founding member of Donate Life Texas, the organization that runs the organ, eye and tissue donor registry.
“One of the key roles I have is serving as an optimist,” Myer says. “I help us continue to look forward and emphasize the good work that we do. When we have things that don’t work out, we talk a lot about a just culture. You do the best you can and if something doesn’t work out well, we investigate it as deeply as we can and try to learn from it.”

Fair and unbiased

Myer has worked in the organ transplant field since 1990, including time with the United Network for Organ Sharing in Richmond, Virginia, which administers the national waiting list and sets up rules for organ procurement. One of the ongoing challenges he faces is building public trust that the system is fair and not tilted in favor of those who are famous or who have more money than someone else.
“We have to make sure the public understands that organ donation and allocation is fair and equitable and is not influenced by financial position, race or any other factor other than need,” Myer says. “It occurs in a highly regulated, highly reviewed manner.”
Myer says Texas has the fastest growing donor registry in the country, having grown from about 75,000 donors just a few years ago to more than 5.8 million people today.
“The donor registry is so important because the world we work in, it’s filled with incredible joy and generosity like you can’t imagine,” Myer says. “We’ve never met these people before and they are at the worst times of their lives. They have lost their loved one and we sit with them and they trust us. They give the gift of life. You turn this tragic situation into amazing rebirth.”