If Joe Smith jumps to the top of the list, then yes.
Whats the point of a waiting list if someone can just swoop into the top of it without... waiting?
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Methodist University Hospital Confirms Steve Jobs Liver Transplant
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If Joe Smith jumps to the top of the list, then yes.
Whats the point of a waiting list if someone can just swoop into the top of it without... waiting?
Bingo! anyone who thinks money and power play no role is full of it. A suitcase full of cash can make many things happen in life, including getting special treatment in the waiting list.
My thoughts
Firstly I am gald Steve is doing well. Like anyone who has medical issues I wish them best in their recovery.
I think it is more than likely we will see Steve less and less in the day to day running of the company. He will become more like a figurehead who will be quoted on press releases.
As for the social commentry on if he jumped the queue well this is the US. If you put him against some one who had liver failure with no insurance I imagine he got first choice. I don't blame him as if I was him I would spend as much money as I could to better my health.
Firstly I am gald Steve is doing well. Like anyone who has medical issues I wish them best in their recovery.
I think it is more than likely we will see Steve less and less in the day to day running of the company. He will become more like a figurehead who will be quoted on press releases.
As for the social commentry on if he jumped the queue well this is the US. If you put him against some one who had liver failure with no insurance I imagine he got first choice. I don't blame him as if I was him I would spend as much money as I could to better my health.
Exactly. I should have put my argument more like this from the beginning.
Cash is king, and everybody knows that is true.
He needs to rethink how he has phrased the argument. "Kill" has the wrong connotation. Something like "is linked to the death of" is more accurate. Jobs did not cause that person to be at death's door. However, he certainly wouldn't have closed the door before that person got there. Frankly, if getting an organ from a dead body anyway, he has already been involved in a death to get the organ. Would be as imprecise to say he "killed" that person also. However, it is a similar "linked to". A notion that completely uninvolved in that other death isn't a good argument either. To kill is to cause the death of. Cause, no. In the causal chain of events leading to the death, yes.
Putting "special treatment", "donor list-jumping", and "invasion of privacy" issues aside..
What captures my eye in this whole mess is the letter from Steve that was published back in January (linkity) stating that he simply had a "nutritional problem". Was that a complete lie, or was his original diagnosis so utterly inaccurate that the "sophisticated blood tests" couldn't tell the difference between malnutrition & life-threatening liver disease?
Either way, AAPL stockholders have got to be annoyed. That letter directly affected how the market responded to the news of his health. (regardless of whether folks believe it's anyone's business how sick he is, the reality is that the market was hanging on his every word)
If the information in that letter was knowingly false then writing it will likely end up a catastrophic mistake on his part.
I'm a big fan of Steve's RDF.. however I sincerely doubt the SEC shares that sentiment.
What captures my eye in this whole mess is the letter from Steve that was published back in January (linkity) stating that he simply had a "nutritional problem". Was that a complete lie, or was his original diagnosis so utterly inaccurate that the "sophisticated blood tests" couldn't tell the difference between malnutrition & life-threatening liver disease?
Either way, AAPL stockholders have got to be annoyed. That letter directly affected how the market responded to the news of his health. (regardless of whether folks believe it's anyone's business how sick he is, the reality is that the market was hanging on his every word)
If the information in that letter was knowingly false then writing it will likely end up a catastrophic mistake on his part.
I'm a big fan of Steve's RDF.. however I sincerely doubt the SEC shares that sentiment.
Actually, the press is not bound by HIPAA, so it is the WSJ's source, not the WSJ, who violated HIPAA (assuming it was done without permission.)
The fact that Steve had a bad MELD score adds a whole new wrinkle to the equation, and makes it much more likely that the information released prior to his leave of absence was deliberately deceptive. It was speculated that cancer spread had led to the transplant, which could explain an unplanned procedure. But this isn't part of the MELD score. To get a high MELD score, you have to have significant failure of the liver and/or kidney. This doesn't happen overnight generally. So, there was likely something going on that was not disclosed prior to his leave.
Nothing says you have to disclose your health history as a prominent figure in a company. But when you make a statement about your health, and it turns out that statement was misleading, there are a whole host of shareholder issues. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Regardless, I think everyone wishes Steve the best of health. He's truly one of the best innovators of the past 30 years and the world is a better place because he's here.
Dave
Perfect example of what I'm talking about. He was transplanted at Methodist University Hospital in Tennessee. Hospitals in the United States won't transplant any organs shipped from elsewhere, and it's illegal to get an organ shipped here anyway. Even if you could, a liver will only last about 24 hours outside of the body. That's why being on multiple waiting lists, like SJ was, helps. Geographical location of the donor to the hospital where the transplant would take place plays a large part in the allocation of organs.
Read all of the previous posts in which this discussion continued and some of what I said was retracted.
For your sake, and the sake of anyone else who says it "doesn't affect them", let's hope that remains true. Neither myself nor anyone in my family thought it affected us until I was given 24 hours to live without a new liver. Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone.
It isn't really a waiting list if you are trying to draw a comparison to waiting in line at the bank or at the Dept of Motor Vehicles or waiting for a Palm Pre on backorder.
It is a triage list. Which means sicker folks get inserted in front of other people. So yes, the risk of death for those less sick goes up so that those more sick have better odds. You increase the odds for one group, but slightly decreasing the odds for another. Hopefully, and done skillfully, a smaller decrease than increase.
Now often some aspects of triage are a subjective judgment call. Won't change a score of 15 to 22, but might change a 23 to 24 with reasonable justification.
And there are labs out there making hormones and stuff that does not show up on tests ( very high paid athletes wanting the "clear"). How hard is it going to be for similar folks to come up with stuff that does show up on tests? Did Jobs juice his score? Most likely not. Is it possible with a large wad of money and a network connections to do it. Most likely yes.
So what if...
so basically apple lied knowing that Jobs was possibly not going to make it back by june. What if he didn't get his liver and didn't have a transplant... they would have been f'ed.
so basically apple lied knowing that Jobs was possibly not going to make it back by june. What if he didn't get his liver and didn't have a transplant... they would have been f'ed.
I mean, I really don't want to start rumours here... but I heard that at the heart of Steve Jobs' new liver is a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, can anyone confirm this?
Goofy
Man, this thread is goofy.
I am glad that Steve Jobs is okay. (Notice I said Steve Jobs and not Steve. We're not on a first name basis.) But I'm sure that Jobs doesn't really care that I'm glad.
He's not the friendliest guy. If you tried to talk to him in public, he would probably ignore you, or snap at you.
The creepiest comment I saw in the original liver thread was someone saying how cool it would be to have donated a piece of their liver to him and to know that it was inside of him.
Jobs is a fascinating character, but quit being weird.
Man, this thread is goofy.
I am glad that Steve Jobs is okay. (Notice I said Steve Jobs and not Steve. We're not on a first name basis.) But I'm sure that Jobs doesn't really care that I'm glad.
He's not the friendliest guy. If you tried to talk to him in public, he would probably ignore you, or snap at you.
The creepiest comment I saw in the original liver thread was someone saying how cool it would be to have donated a piece of their liver to him and to know that it was inside of him.
Jobs is a fascinating character, but quit being weird.
Source didn't have to violate HIPAA. Only the healtcare and providing staff are covered. Random Joe Blow walking down the hallway of the hospital who sees you coming out of the transplant doctors space is not covered by HIPAA. There are many people in a hospital who aren't employed directly or indirectly by the hospital. The staff is more likely to have the information, but they aren't the only ones. It is a lower probability. The hospital probably didn't make him sit in a crowded waiting room when it was time for tests.
Having a bad MELD score doesn't automatically get you put onto the transplant list. Someone who is sick can have a screwed up score. You don't opt for a transplant for a correctable condition.
The problem people face with the "he has to have been lying before" is that in order to answer that question folks would need fully access to all tests and all doctor conversations and all dates on only the diagnosis made. That's ridiculous. Nobody should have to release that to the public at all unless there is far more than a "investors or public" would like to know issue. Even if under suspicion still shouldn't be released to the public.
I think folks in general do wish him well. It is the amount of hyperbole though. "Best innovators" ? How about "one of the most famous innovators" in last 30 years. Or "most wealthy innovators" in last 30 years.
There are lots of folks who have won Nobel Prizes in Medicine and Physics over last 30 years who have deeper, longer lasting contributions to humankind than Jobs. Or the folks who came up with a technique to stretch liver viability from 8 to 24 hours. Or the folks who add the improvements so the relatively large computer that Woz and Jobs sold years ago is now effectively the size postage stamp. Or.... a very long list of stuff that most folks just take for granted. They just don't get a "just one more think" show splashed in the news 1 or 2 times a year.
Jobs needs Apple as a vehicle as more than Apple needs Jobs for all of this "he walks on water" credit he gets.
lets put it this way, lets say person number one has been on the list for 1 year and person 2 for 2 months. lets assume they are both ranked 1 and 2 as well. not lets say person 2, while he has been on the list a shorter amount of time has a significantly higher risk of dying in the next 3 months. If you stick to the amount of time on the list then you disadvantage the sicker patient, and you then leave the door open for people being listed for the sake of getting more time on the list. there is an organ shortage, you need to sae the people who are going to die sooner, than the ones who have been listed "longer" its not perfect, but i think its better than just measuring time on the list
Yeah, I'm glad too, but as I said, it really is none of our business. He's still human, you know.
This article explains the reason that Steve Jobs most-likely received the organ transplant, as a result of conversations with professional organ transplant surgeons. All of you can stop speculating on your own now. At least read this article first. In summary, Steve Jobs basically had to wait on a waiting list just like everyone else; however, he was able to sign up on waiting lists in populated metropolitan cities, where the rate of available organs is higher, and because Steve had the financial ability to either own his own private jet or else be able to afford a chartered jet, he was able to quickly fly to whichever city his name came up on the list first in. Most people do not have that ability because they do not own their own jet or cannot afford a chartered jet.
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090624/ap_on_hi_te/us_med_apple_jobs_transplant
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090624/ap_on_hi_te/us_med_apple_jobs_transplant
This thread has caused way too much work (deleting of off-topic posts / derailed discussion of the OT), so I'm closing it. I think the posters who've had relevant comments have had time to say what they've wanted to say.
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