Personalities: Climbing for Donors

Five unlikely climbers trekked up the 14,410-foot Mount Rainier this July: an outdoorsy couple from Alaska, a man from Seattle, a professional snowboarder, and a surgeon. Andrew Precht, MD, FACS, director of the liver and pancreas transplant program at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, organized the climb with these four organ transplant patients to promote organ donor awareness. The Polish-born surgeon was inspired to lead the climb by the outdoorsy couple, who came to Swedish when the man began having trouble hiking. He was diagnosed with kidney failure, so his girlfriend decided to give him one of hers. Precht performed their surgeries and hatched the expedition idea. Just one organ-recipient climber—the snowboarder—made it to the top, but for Precht, helping his patients to continue leading active lives was more meaningful than summiting.

On the point of the climb: I thought, I've got to show people what transplant does for the patient. I want to show people that the transplant doesn't only save life but changes life—it makes life normal for the patient, and even better than normal because they can climb Mount Rainier. Their chances of summiting were the same as mine. If they train, they can summit.

On what he got out of the climb: It was such a great feeling to be able to be a surgeon and to go on a climb with your patients. That's why I'm doing this, why I'm a surgeon—because of them. It's a big payback. That's my paycheck. To see them being sick, being able to do the kidney transplant for them, and then take them for a climb on Rainier.

On influencing the public: Every time I do something like this I hope a few people sign up to be organ donors, but you have to maintain the push. Like plants and flowers, if you don't water them they die. It's the same with this idea. You've got to keep giving the idea to society so people will eventually will have second thoughts and reconsider.

—Marianne Aiello