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Hospital Confirms Steve Jobs's Liver Transplant
CNet is reporting that the hospital where Apple's CEO reportedly got a liver transplant two months ago has now confirmed the truth of these reports. "Steve Jobs underwent his liver transplant about two months ago at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, the hospital confirmed Tuesday. Jobs, who returned to work Apple's campus in Cupertino, Calif., on Monday after a six-month medical leave, 'is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis,' according to a statement by Dr. James D. Eason, the program director of the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute. ... While Eason said the confirmation was being provided with Jobs's approval, he cited patient confidentially in saying that he could not reveal any further information on the specifics of Jobs's surgery."
third party upgrades were approved
Nullius in verba
This is the second story in a few hours we've had talking about some guy's liver transplant. It makes me feel like a voyeur. Can we get back to something wholesome and uplifting, like bashing the RIAA?
Qxe4
About the same time this buddy of mine, Eugene Victor Tooms went missing.
I record my sleeptalking
Are you dense?
From your own quote:
While Eason said the confirmation was being provided with Jobs' approval ...
was that Jobs underwent a brain enhancement procedure which enables him to sufficiently focus his mental RDF energy for use as a telepathic weapon.
Apple will house the new weapon, tentatively codenamed iDontThinkSo in an underground bunker beneath their Cupertino campus.
Because of Mr Jobs' prolific temper, executives were initially concerned about the potential for misuse the weapon presented and the possibility of its use against enemies who were not truly dire. For this reason, a killswitch was installed to be controlled remotely via Phil Schiller's iPhone.
Analysts predict the new weapon will bolster the company's share price by at least 20% and should by them enough time to complete the fully cybernetic Jobs 2.0.
That would be 'dumbass, Sir!' to you... And thank Bhudda for /., where people can have a good old fashioned virtual pissing contest without mods getting in the way :)
Maybe now he'll understand why it's so important to be able to install third-party parts and he'll decide to loosen-up the licensing a little bit.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
$10 says his old liver ends up on ebay.
I'd tend to agree that this is useless voyeurism, except that there are some ethical issues that come up in transplants when the patient is very rich. The NY Times had an article about this today, and they specifically mentioned this hospital as one that had a very short average wait time of 3.8 months, compared to the national average of 12.3 months. "If you had access to a jet and had six hours to get anywhere in the country, you'd have a wide choice of programs," they quote one doctor as saying.
Find free books.
Well, if Jobs was experiencing liver failure, it probably was accompanied by hormone imbalances- the liver is responsible for breaking down a wide variety of hormones, most notably the steroid hormones. So the idea that he was suffering from a "hormone imbalance" is probably true, but omitting the proximate cause of that hormone imbalance, if it happened to be liver failure, is being less than completely honest to the public and to Apple's investors.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
And when he takes his shirt off you can see the backlit apple logo they installed, which also mysteriously doubled the cost of the operation.
- There is no point, it's like a sphere -
go to help & preferences, click on classic index - general, and check use classic index.
that got rid of it for me.
Oh yeah, and Apple lied to investors and the world: the man had cancer and a failing organ, and they claimed it was a "hormone imbalance." I hope the SEC is already working on this...
A few things A) You are not entitled to know everything about Steve Jobs B) The shareholders really only need to know that someone will take the place if Jobs dies C) Steve Jobs, or any other CEO could die of any random cause at any time and D) Perhaps thats all that was confirmed at the time? And I'd say that you would probably have a hormone imbalance if you had a failing organ.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The USA has several organ-transplant centers. In theory, patients can enter their name into the waiting list of any or all centers.
Practically speaking, most patients enter their name into the waiting list of the single most accessible center. The patients then arrange to live near the center as their name approaches the top of the list. Physicians cannot just freeze a liver for a week until you can arrange a plane ticket to reach the center. Livers are perishable items.
Due to the aforementioned cost and logistical issues, patients are effectively restricted to only 1 center. However, Steve Jobs -- with his billions of dollars -- can enter his name into all the waiting lists of all the centers. He can hire a private jet service to take him to any center immediately.
Life just is not fair.
Well a double-dumbass on you, sir!
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Some people have more money and more power and better opportunities than others, but that doesn't make it automatically unfair. Would you cry "foul" if a sitting President took the same actions as Jobs? It's not like he cheated the system (as a President probably would). Would you be angry with a friend for buying a new TV or laptop that you wanted but couldn't afford?
Practically speaking, most patients enter their name into the waiting list of the single most accessible center. The patients then arrange to live near the center as their name approaches the top of the list.
Given that all centers were equally accessible to him, he did exactly what every patient does. He is smart enough to know that a queue of 295 is significantly lower than a queue of 1615, and all other things being equal the rational choice is to go for the shortest line. If you were in Jobs's place, what would you have done differently?
What is the point of having wealth if you don't use it to your advantage? Of course it can be misused, but you're going to have to work a lot harder to argue that that is the case here.
Your brain is not a computer.
Things will never be completely fair, but the way to make them more fair is to help everyone become more rich and powerful.
To paraphrase Bill Cosby (on "mind-expanding" drugs): But what if you're an asshole?
The same applies here:
Most people are the ones I see littering, driving like idiots, buying stupid junk, getting drunk and vomiting in my sunroof, etc.
Do I want them to be any more powerful than they are? Hell, no!
Futurist Traditionalism
Oh heaven forbid that someone actually uses the money they created to get better faster. Heaven forbid that some people are going to be able to afford things that others cannot. Its the same thing with health care. Because there is not an infinite supply of livers, along with an infinite supply of doctors, its true that some people might not be able to afford a liver transplant. Sure, its sad, but such is life.
Assuming the linked article in GP is true:
Why should someone be given preference on the basis of how much money / power they have? Such an idea is right at home in a country like China, but surely it flies in the face of the idea that "all men are created equal".
I know that in Australia / New Zealand we have a strict national transplant system which means that you can only be on the transplant list for your home state. The system is specifically designed so that "Ethnicity, gender, financial, social, celebrity or political status does not affect the allocation of organs... (and) Organs are given to the person with the greatest medical need who has the best chance of successful transplantation."
The fact is, by using the money you created to buy better drugs or treatment, you are not directly affecting anyone else. With a unique item like an organ, you are depriving someone of a chance at life.
It's a bit like the difference between 'pirating' a movie and 'pirating' a ship off the coast of somalia, in one case no-one is (directly) worse off and in the other, one party forcefully deprives the other of an item.
Anyway, I know where I'd rather get sick. :P
That's not exactly how it went down.
On January 5th, Jobs said that he had a hormone imbalance. On January 14th, he said that he had "learned [his] health issues are more complex than [he] originally thought".
A Whipple procedure really screws up your digestive system and almost everyone afterwards has bouts of weight loss, etc. It's altogether possible that his doctors thought that was going on until metastases were discovered between Jan 5th and Jan 14th.
It's a complicated matter, you know-- how much are stockholders entitled to know versus an executive's right to privacy in his medical information.
This is going to go well with Fava beans and a nice Chianti
Task Mangler
A apple a day, doesn't keep the doctor away.
As someone who has worked with a hospital transplant team, Steve Jobs did absolutely nothing wrong. There is nothing that stops people from doing something similar to what Jobs did - finding the best center with the shortest waiting line; in fact, people do it all the time. Sure, there are plenty of people who cannot afford to do what he did but there are many who can - I saw (and still see it) all the time.
He could pay for the procedure with cash but people who use insurance get transplants all the time. Further, because of Jobs' socioeconomic status - as a transplant team you'd want to give him an organ because he would be able to maintain it. That can be a huge factor in who gets organs and who doesn't. If someone does not have any family to help take care of them or money to hire nursing help and if that person has questionable self-health care and practices (like they are still drinking alcohol and need a liver transplant), then they probably will not get an organ. Jobs will most likely really take care of his transplant, especially because he can pay for additional help.
In no way did he con the transplant system.
In my experience (I'm a doctor), almost all cancer patients go into denial and will downplay the severity of their symptoms. Steve Jobs is a billionaire, a tech guru, and all that, but he's also a human being. Based on what's publicly known, I'd say that his pancreatic islet cell cancer spread to his liver and that his liver tumour was non-resectable, and now he's ended up with a new liver by way of getting rid of the metastases. He describes his situation as a 'hormone imbalance' because that's one of the consequences of his condition, but the underlying diagnosis is far worse than that. Bottom line is that he's a very sick man... a cancer patient with a liver transplant has a limited life expectancy, and his role is now going to be figurehead/part time inputter of ideas more than being the day-to-day boss. Richard
Things will never be completely fair, but the way to make them more fair is to help everyone become more rich and powerful. The only way that can happen is if everyone is more productive: imagine if everyone accomplished in their life things similar to what Steve Jobs has done.
Disclaimer: I am a conservative. So I recognize the above as a variation on "the free market cures all ills" and the conservative notion that more wealth will make all of society better.
It won't.
The reason is basic economics. If everyone were rich and powerful; if everyone could create cool things like Steve Jobs does, then being a CEO would pay minimum wage. Compared to the rest of the world, America is rich on a GDP basis. However, compared to the rest of the world on a quality of life basis, America does little better than some third world countries. Consider:
I went to college. I made the grade. But so did millions of others. Every three years, the US University system grants college degrees to the equivalent of the population of Chicago. These are the people with whom I compete for jobs. Even though my father was an unskilled laborer, he had far less competition and enjoyed a far greater standard of living than I do. Yes, we're all educated now. Did our education solve the problem of limited resources? No, it just allows us a greater understanding of economics, of why, after decade of career preparation, we are now worse off than our parents' generation.
Does the rising tide lift all boats? Sure, to some degree. I can afford gadgets that would have amazed my parents' generation. But yet, for all my education - for changing careers from programming to engineering to get a better salary; in spite of doubling my net worth in the last decade - I am still struggling to afford the basic necessities of life. It means little to be able to buy that killer laptop when I can't afford to put a roof over my head. This isn't an education problem; it isn't a problem of productivity. It is a problem of economics and of corporate greed.
In the 90's, the conservative harping about the loss of morality fell on deaf ears. Who cared if couples opted not to marry and have children? Who cared if corporations became greedy? (Greed was good, right?) Now we reap the harvest we've sown: corporate greed has reduced the effective wages to poverty level, and we're now finding that the economic boom dependent on an ever increasing consumer base is unsustainable, largely in part because the necessary consumers were never born.
I find myself in the oddest of paradoxes: I can afford whatever electronic toys I wish, yet cannot afford the basic necessities of family life.
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