Impact is far greater than people realize

Starzl’s economic

Regarding “Trailblazing Surgeon, Transplant Pioneer Helped Breathe Life Into the City’s Economy” (March 10): Any attempt to quantify the effect that Dr. Thomas Starzl had on the local economy will almost certainly underestimate it by a factor of 5 to 10 or more.

I had my liver transplant in January 2006. I arrived in Pittsburgh in early December 2005 and returned to my home in Kentucky in early March 2006. Within an hour of arriving in Pittsburgh, I was in the ICU where I remained nearly a month waiting for a healthy liver. A nearby patient from Boston had been there six to eight months or more. Both of us had a rare blood type and she needed two organs. Her husband had to work to maintain his insurance and flew from Boston to Pittsburgh two to four times a month as did several members of her family. My own children flew from distant states on a rotating basis weekly.

My wife had not yet completed her Christmas shopping and spent many days visiting local malls in addition to buying appropriate Christmas wrapping paper and visiting your local post office. On many occasions, she felt more comfortable using local taxi services than her car.

On the occasion of Dr. Starzl’s 85th birthday, I sat next to a young lady who had her liver transplant in Pittsburgh and her family. They were from Saudi Arabia. Like many residents of Middle Eastern dictatorships, she never found it necessary to have medical insurance. Your astute hospital administrators in Pittsburgh were not constrained by a fee schedule set by Medicare or for-profit insurance companies when treating residents from these oil-rich countries. They charged what the market could bear.

Any statistician or economist who purports to be sufficiently accurate to estimate the increase in your local economy within a logarithm must first demonstrate they predicted that Donald Trump would win our presidential election and that the Republicans would maintain control of the U.S. Senate.

I’m a grateful patient now doing well thanks to Dr. Starzl and your excellent and compassionate nurses.

CHARLES R. SACHATELLO, M.D.

Lexington, Ky.