In a December 2009 Ampersand post, PRIM&R’s executive director Joan Rachlin, JD, MPH, told a moving story about two dear friends’ kidney donation experience:

When Andy Levey, MD, discovered he was not a donor match for his wife, Roberta Falke, MD, the couple contacted an organ exchange program in hopes of finding another source for the kidney Roberta needed.

In an unexpected—but inspiring—turn of events, Andy donated a kidney to a patient in need, whose wife received her kidney from a donor who, like Andy, could not match his spouse.

But the story did not end there.

The change these donors effected reaches far beyond Andy and Roberta. As reported in the Boston Globe on Sunday, Andy and Roberta were actually involved in a three-way, six-person swap: Andy donated a kidney to a diabetes patient whose wife, in turn, donated a kidney to a man whose wife gave one of her kidneys to Roberta, thus completing the “circle of miracles.”

Read the full Boston Globe article here.