I spent my career as a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon, involved for almost all of it in transplantation. Medicine should be a caring profession, seeking the best for patients, doing no harm, and dealing in truth as the basis of trust. Transplantation might be the apotheosis of human generosity, since one human consents to donate an organ to preserve the life of another, usually unknown to them. Sadly, in some settings this ethical basis has been ignored and organs have been removed forcibly and without consent from prisoners of conscience, many times resulting in their death. Clinicians acting on behalf of the state are often involved, and thus complicit in the crime.
