Meharry and Tennessee’s transplant agency team up as HBCUs focus on disparities in organ donation

The country’s four historically Black medical schools are trying to overcome disparities in organ donation in a national initiative announced early this month.

Nashville’s Meharry Medical College is leading the effort by partnering with Tennessee’s organ donation agency for a pilot program focused on increasing diversity in the field of organ transplant.

There are disparity concerns on all sides, including that Black Americans are three times as likely as white Americans to suffer from kidney failure, but far less likely to even be evaluated for the transplant list, even as they make up 28% of the kidney waitlist. But even more stark is the lack of diversity among transplant surgeons. Only about 5% are Black. Nephrologists, who treat kidney disease, are only 7% Black.

Dr. James Hildreth, Meharry’s president, says underrepresentation in the field is a good place to start.

“We have to deal with this. There’s no getting around it,” he said during a press briefing. “And I know it makes some people uncomfortable. But it’s not about people. It’s about systems that disadvantage one group over another.”

Meharry’s pilot program launches this fall. Tennessee Donor Services, which is the region’s organ procurement organization, works with families of dying patients for donors’ organs and coordinates the recovery and move to a transplant center. The nonprofit will provide classroom instruction. Meharry students and residents, who are mostly Black, will also get shadowing opportunities.

Meanwhile, Meharry will help educate transplant nurses and doctors about cultural sensitivities they should consider with Black patients. Ensuring they fully understand the benefits of transplant rather than permanent dialysis has been raised as a starting point. A February report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine also spotlighted how many patients on the waiting list never learn that their surgeon turned down an organ on their behalf.

“Never before has our field been more focused on rooting out inequity and increasing organ donation and donor registration within the Black community,” says Tennessee Donor Services executive director Jill Grandas. “We are confident that this novel partnership with Meharry will lead to more lives saved in Tennessee and across our nation.”