The Role of Grief and Fear in the Death of Kidney Transplant Patients
ROBERT M. EISENDRATH M.D.1
1 Instructor in psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and associate in surgery (psychiatry), Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, Mass.
Eight out of 11 patients who died following renal transplantation were noted to have suffered a sense of abandonment by their families or to have experienced panic and a sense of pessimism about the outcome of the operation, to a degree not observed among patients who survived. The author concludes that preoperative psychotherapy to help mobilize the hopeless patient's will to live may be necessary for his survival.
