The Washington monthly's Monthly Journalism Award.

Avery Comorow

"Jesica's Story"

U.S. News & World Report

July 28-August 4, 2003

Pairing touching personal detail with rigorous system analysis, Avery Comorow explores the failure of the nation's organ transplant system and the doctors and medical professionals who run it to provide sufficient safeguards to prevent tragic mistakes. Comorow structures this story around one such mistake: the story of 17-year old Jesica Santillan, a Mexican girl whose parents brought her to the United States illegally so she could have the heart transplant she needed to save her life. Santillan died when Duke University doctors gave her a heart and set of lungs that did not match her blood type. Her body rejected the new organs, and, after a series of subsequent operations and a second transplant failed to save her, she died after going into cardiac arrest. Comorow goes into expert depth to detail why even the most respected medical institutions can make mistakes with transplants--and to offer...