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by chana_masala 1610 days ago
Am I reading this wrong? Isn't this how you'd do it?

> As of 2018, the most common procedure is to take a functioning heart, with or without both lungs, from a recently deceased organ donor (brain death is the standard) and implant it into the patient. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation

2 comments

The point is that there's a gigantic gap between supply and demand, and a lot if not most of the supply goes to waste because you can't stockpile hearts. They need to be harvested from a compatible donor and very quickly transplanted. The odds of finding a compatible match are not great.
There simply are not enough compatible donors to meet the demand. With an emphasis on "compatible"