Liver Donors and Recipients

Ken Schuler and Deborah Parker

The results of the first "stranger-to-stranger" living donor liver transplant are encouraging to doctors and potential recipients. The transplant was performed in April, 1999 at Virginia Commonwealth University's (VCU) Medical College of Virginia Hospitals.

Living donors often produce better results than deceased donors but the donor has historically been a close relative or friend of the recipient. Living stranger-to-stranger donation is quite new.

Ken Schuler, 47, of Linville, Va. did something no one else has done. His offer of a portion of his liver to a stranger was a first. "I don't have words enough to say how incredible this gift is," said Dr. Amadeo Marcos, director of the living, related transplant program at VCU's Medical College of Virginia Hospitals.

Schuler said the decision to donate part of his liver took little thought. He's donated nearly 20 gallons of blood over the years so when he heard about Deborah Parker's need for a liver transplant on the local news he knew his blood type, B, matched Parker's. "It would be exactly like sitting on a river bank and watching a stranger drown. I couldn't do that any better or any easier than watching a member of my own family drown. So I had to do something."

Schuler calls his act "no big deal," but Parker disagrees. "I call him my life preserver," she said. "He has given me a second chance."