Podcast Episode 118

with our guest Name Not Set

When Death Becomes Life: Lessons from a Transplant Surgeon with Dr. Joshua Mezrich

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

• A patient who died in Joshua’s care and how his values changed throughout his career
• How stress can make it difficult to keep your humanity and sense of purpose
• Missing a critical phone call and the importance of humility
• A brief history of organ transplants
• Why a pharmaceutical company wanted its executives to collect soil samples whenever they traveled
• Why Joshua wrote When Death Becomes Life and how writing the book changed his life
• The “driven beasts” and the incredible weight on the shoulders of pioneering surgeons
• Why the way we think of death as a society matters
• Forming the concept of brain death
• Challenging the definition of brain death and the case of Jahi McMath
• How organ donation has helped families cope with death and the first time Joshua met a donor family
• The power of emotional awareness and mastery
• What compelled Joshua to become a surgeon after majoring in Russian Language & Literature
• How his practice as a surgeon transformed his awareness and appreciation of the spiritual
• The first time Joshua performed a transplant and why surgeons need to be humble
• Living donations, pair exchanges, and other innovations in organ transplantation
• Choosing to be kind in a challenging world
• What was it like to draft a manuscript worth 300,000 words
• Why writers shouldn’t stop their writing session at the end of a chapter and other advice on writing a book