Treatment Paper - Statesman article

I read a story on the Austin-American Statesman’s Web site, titled “Port Arthur teen remembers young organ donor who saved her life.” It briefly described the life of Lawrencia Keys, a Port Arthur resident who received a kidney from a girl that was fatally wounded in an all-terrain vehicle accident. The story also includes information about Keys’ life today and the donor’s family. While the story was an interesting read I felt it would benefit from the inclusion of a few multimedia pieces, namely a photo album of sorts to honor other donors.

I think it would work well to allow organ recipients who read the story to post short profiles on their donors. This would include a photo of the person, when and where they lived and a paragraph honoring the person. The Statesman could then gather them in a folder and add a link to this user-created content. It would be interesting, I feel, because of the human interest element; we all want to know what others like us are doing.

Links to additional content would also help. In the story I read that Keys suffered from spina bifida, a neural tube defect that caused a bladder problem, resulting in kidney damage. A link devoted to this subject could work, as well as an infographic detailing some of the problems associated with the disorder, in order to help readers better understand Keys’ plight. The graph could also include stats on how prevalent it is, broken down by various categories (race, ethnicity, region, etc.). The story ends with information about donating, and a link for signing up to be in the statewide donation registry would be an obvious improvement.

In regards to donating, it is obvious some people are squeamish about the idea of their innards being transplanted to another person. I would include with this story a pair of polls, asking what are the top reasons why a person does and does not choose to register as a donor. This information could then be organized with data showing survival rates of people living off donations, perhaps doing a common good by convincing people to donate.

The story describes Keys’ prognosis as good. She has started college and is living a normal life. A video diary would help illustrate this. Similarly to the video we saw on the UT professor, I would like it to be self-narrated, and perhaps include some interviews with Keys’ friends, perhaps about what kind of inspiration she is to them. Seeing her live a “normal life” would show people a bit about an afflicted person and help them realize they can operate just like anyone else and do not need to be, or should not be, stigmatized.