or years, Charles Ward, 54, director of public
safety at Methodist Hospital in Houston, suffered from polycystic kidney disease,
but that didn’t keep him from working. Then last year his kidneys failed and he
was forced to start dialysis. Not wanting to be tied to this routine, the manager
started hoping for a kidney transplant. Word quickly spread through his department
and four of his employees offered to donate a kidney. Last January, Joshua Phipps,
33, did just that. Phipps called it a small sacrifice. His boss called it heroic.
It’s one thing for a boss to donate a kidney to an employee, which has occurred
in several other companies, but when an employee is the donor and the boss is
the recipient, it’s a slightly different matter that flashes warning lights for
some workplace experts. The Methodist Hospital example is bound to be repeated:
polycystic kidney disease, which is potentially fatal, affects approximately
600,000 people in the United States alone, according to the
Nephrology
Channel Web site,
and there are other reasons for transplantation as well.
An employee’s illness can actually foster community in a workgroup
as employees rally around and support an ill colleague. But as selfless as donating
an organ may be, when it involves the workplace hierarchy it’s not quite as cut
and dried as when a stranger, friend or acquaintance comes forward. The big issue
is whether an employee is freely consenting to the donation or might feel pressure
to do so, says Art Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University
of Pennsylvania.
"As long as employees aren’t getting pressured, bullied or bribed,"
he says, there should be no problem. He adds that the psycho-social screening that
the transplant center requires the donor and recipient to undergo before approving
a transplant should uncover any problems.
A second concern is whether other employees might feel the donor
will receive special privileges as a result of such generosity. After all, the donor
has given the boss not only a part of his body, in itself an enormous act, but a
new lease on life. In one news report, Ward laughed off a question about whether
Phipps’ generosity would impact his performance reviews. The hospital declined to
comment for this article, which may hint at the sensitivity of this issue.
The international nature of work today may also present cross-cultural
issues when it comes to transplants, Caplan says. There are workplaces in which
employees are in a more subservient role than in the U.S., such as in Japan. In
these cultures it would be more difficult to say no when a kidney is being sought
for the boss, he says. That may be an issue when Asian employees work in American
companies on U.S. soil too.
Dr. Maynard Brusman, a consulting psychologist and executive coach
in San Francisco, questions the long-term ramifications of transplant between boss
and employee. At first, it might seem that there are only positives, he says, but
what if there are issues down the line? What if the employee loses his job because
of cutbacks? Will he feel betrayed? What if his performance deteriorates? Will the
boss be able to take the same steps he would with a different employee? What will
other employees think?
Brusman would like to see a doctoral dissertation on what occurs
over 20 years in these transplant situations. He’s also concerned about invading
a person’s privacy in the workplace. Companies often promote charitable acts like
these. But what if the employee donor isn’t comfortable with the entire company
knowing about his gift to his boss, and by extension, newspaper and Web readers
or TV viewers?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Workplace
Partnership for Life campaign is bringing organ donor awareness programs
directly to employers and employees nationwide. As part of this campaign, for
instance, the
Mid-South Transplant Foundation
in Memphis, Tennessee, provides promotional materials on organ donation for companywide
distribution. It also provides lunchtime speakers (either the recipient or donor
family or both), materials and speakers for health fairs and informational fliers
to stuff in payroll envelopes. This campaign does not directly promote donation
between employer and employee, but could some employees interpret this encouragement
as pressure if it’s a supervisor who needs a kidney?
Today kidneys, hearts and livers are often transplanted, but Caplan
predicts that with scientific advances, doctors may one day regularly transplant
other organs—even faces. If it comes to that, he advises, companies may want to
establish policies for certain types of transplants, because there may be even more
psychological, emotional and social considerations in play.
If potential donors want to help someone avoid lifelong dialysis—or
can actually save someone’s life—it would be heartbreaking to stifle this most generous
of impulses just because the person is the boss. Or, turning that around, it would
be devastating for supervisors to think they should forgo a new kidney if the prospective
donor is an employee, especially when live kidney donors are in such short supply.
The picture is dismal for people needing other transplants as well.
More than 82,000 people are awaiting transplants nationwide, according to the
United
Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), and about 17 patients die every day while
awaiting an organ.
However, when the transplant involves an employer-employee relationship, companies
might want to ensure they have carefully considered all the issues.
Workforce Management Online, March 2008 --
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