Retransplantation and the “Noncompliant” Patient

Abstract

The patient was a 19-year-old female who was transferred to this children's hospital from a community hospital in a neighboring state. She is well known to the hospital staff because she had a kidney transplanted and retransplanted several times there. Her first transplant as at age 8 and she was retransplanted most recently approximately 3 years ago. She immediately rejected her second kidney and received a third. She is currently admitted because she is again rejecting her kidney, probably due to not taking her medication. The ethics consultant was called because the attending physician wanted to know if it was ethical to retransplant a “noncompliant” patient.