Transplants: Seeing the Whole Human

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More About

• Rick McCann
• Neil Theise
• San Francisco Zen Center

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Organ transplants – they’re considered a miracle of science. But what about some of the ethical and spiritual quandaries that come with them? Richard McCann received a new liver and ran headlong into the fact that someone else’s death had given him life. He also was forced to consider how having a new body part that had belonged to someone else changed the way he thought about himself. McCann is an experienced writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry who’s writing a memoir about his experience. And what about Western medicine that provided the skill and technology for the transplant? Aren’t any prominent physicians considering how the spiritual and metaphysical can be incorporated to achieve a better and more holistic understanding of humans? As it turns out there are, and one of them is Neil Theise, who’s considered to be among the world’s foremost liver pathologists. Theise and McCann will appear on stage together to pair their insights in “Across Bodies” at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center as part of Litquake. It’s in partnership with the San Francisco Zen Center in the Expert’s Mind series.
Fri., Oct. 8, 7:30 p.m., 2010