Passion, Compassion, and Empathy: Dr. Hiroshi Sogawa on Organ Donation, Transplantation, and Saving More Lives

Barbara Doyle
Jul 15
8 min read

Updated: Jul 16

For Dr. Hiroshi Sogawa, transplantation is one of medicine’s greatest expressions of hope.

As Surgical Director of Liver Transplantation at Yale New Haven Hospital and Professor of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Sogawa has dedicated his career to advancing the field of transplantation while keeping patients and families at the center of every decision. In a recent conversation with Donate Life CT, Dr. Sogawa described the mission that guides his work: to lead with passion, compassion, and empathy while continually pushing the boundaries of transplantation to save more lives.

“Transplantation is one of medicine’s greatest expressions of hope,” Dr. Sogawa said. “Every organ donor creates an extraordinary legacy. Every transplant offers a second chance at life.”

A Career Built on Hope and Innovation

Dr. Sogawa’s journey into transplantation began in Japan, where he completed medical school in 1995. At that time, brain-dead organ donation had been largely frozen. Because deceased donor transplantation was not available in the same way it was in other countries, living donor liver transplantation was beginning to emerge as a necessary, lifesaving path forward.

“When I finished medical school, living donor liver transplantation was just beginning because brain-death transplantation was not being done,” he explained. “That inspired me to look for opportunities in organ transplantation.”

That early experience gave him a global perspective on donation and transplant systems. It also shaped his belief that innovation, education, trust, and public engagement are all essential to saving more lives.

His inspiration came in part from Dr. Thomas Starzl, widely known as the father of modern transplantation. Dr. Starzl’s pioneering work helped make liver transplantation a clinical reality and influenced generations of transplant surgeons.

“What I learned about pushing boundaries also came from Dr. Starzl,” Dr. Sogawa said. “He taught that we have to push the field and advance it to save more lives.”

Leading with Passion, Compassion, and Empathy

photo of transplant professionals at Yale New Haven Hospital

For Dr. Sogawa, leadership in transplantation is grounded in three principles: passion, compassion, and empathy.

Passion, he said, inspires excellence, innovation, and the courage to challenge what is possible. Compassion reminds the team that every patient and family is facing one of the most difficult moments of their lives. Empathy builds trust, strengthens teams, and creates a culture where everyone feels valued and empowered.

“My leadership style is inspirational and motivational,” he shared. “My goal is to unite people around a shared purpose because extraordinary achievements are only possible when an entire team believes in the same mission.”

That mission is simple and powerful: save more lives.

Since joining Yale, Dr. Sogawa said one of the changes he is most proud of is helping the transplant team focus on that shared purpose. In a field filled with complexity, regulations, urgency, and emotion, keeping the central mission clear matters.

“When I came here, my first message was that our mission is to save more lives,” he said. “There are many boundaries, whether they are social issues, supportive care needs, complex disease, or other barriers. We understand those boundaries, but we must ask how we can overcome them.”

Liver Transplantation: The Ultimate Team Sport

Dr. Hiroshi Sogawa performing a liver transplant in the operating room

Dr. Sogawa describes liver transplantation as the ultimate team sport in medicine.

The journey begins long before surgery. It includes referrals, evaluation, donor identification, organ procurement, patient education, and waitlist management. It continues through one of the most technically demanding operations in surgery and extends into lifelong recovery with ICU care, immunosuppression management, rehabilitation, and long-term follow-up.

“Transplantation is the biggest team sport,” he said.

In the operating room, Dr. Sogawa compares the experience to driving in Formula 1. The procedure demands speed, precision, judgment, and teamwork. Every minute matters. Every decision is critical. The margin for error is small.

“There is both responsibility and excitement,” he said. “During the operation, everything is fast and high-speed, and we are 200 percent focused until it is done.”

But no successful transplant belongs to one surgeon.

“It is the result of an extraordinary multidisciplinary team,” Dr. Sogawa says, including surgeons, hepatologists, nephrologists, cardiologists, pulmonologists, anesthesiologists, infectious disease physicians, pathologists, blood bank specialists, HLA lab specialists, advanced practice providers, nurses, operating room surgical technicians, perfusionists, coordinators, ICU physicians, pharmacists, nutritionist, social workers, administrators, administrative assistants, finance professionals, researchers, donor hospitals, organ procurement organizations, and many others working together. “We celebrate every successful transplant together because each patient’s success belongs to the entire team.”

Innovation at Yale: Building a Program to Save More Lives

At Yale, Dr. Sogawa is helping build a liver transplant program known for innovation, collaboration, and patient-centered care. His vision includes expanding access through outreach and satellite clinics, growing living donor liver transplantation, advancing transplant oncology, leading innovation in normothermic machine perfusion and organ preservation, expanding clinical research, training the next generation of transplant surgeons and physician leaders, and delivering an exceptional patient and family experience.

Every one of those initiatives has the same purpose: to save more lives.

One important area of innovation is normothermic machine perfusion, a technology that allows a donor liver to remain outside the body while functioning more like it is still inside the body. Oxygenated blood circulates through the organ, allowing the team to assess it and, in some cases, improve its quality before transplant.

For liver transplantation, Dr. Sogawa said this technology can expand the types of donor organs that can be used, reduce complications, shorten ICU time, and help patients go home earlier.

“Without these new technologies, we probably would not be able to use some organs,” he said. “The technology allows us to do more transplants and save more lives.”

The Future of Organ Donation and Transplantation

Dr. Hiroshi Sogawa posing for a photo at the American Society of Transplantation conference

Dr. Sogawa believes the future of transplantation is incredibly exciting. Three scientific advances have the potential to transform the field: immune tolerance, xenotransplantation, and regenerative medicine using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells).

These advances could help solve two of the greatest challenges in transplantation: organ shortage and the need for lifelong immunosuppression.

“The two biggest problems in transplantation are, first, the requirement for immunosuppression,” he said. “The second problem is organ shortage.”

Immune tolerance could one day allow transplant recipients to live with a transplanted organ without lifelong immunosuppressive medications. Xenotransplantation, which involves using genetically engineered animal organs, may help overcome the shortage of donor organs. Regenerative medicine using iPS cells could one day make it possible to create patient-specific organs, potentially minimizing rejection and reducing the need for immunosuppression.

“These advances represent more than scientific milestones,” Dr. Sogawa states. “They represent hope for thousands of patients waiting for a second chance at life.”

Could Transplants One Day Work Without Lifelong Immunosuppression?

After a transplant, recipients typically need anti-rejection medications to help prevent the immune system from attacking the transplanted organ. These medications are lifesaving, but they also require lifelong management.

Researchers are studying immune tolerance, which could one day allow some transplant recipients to live with a transplanted organ without lifelong immunosuppressive medications. Dr. Sogawa identified immune tolerance as one of the major scientific advances that could transform the future of transplantation.

“My dream is that one day transplantation will no longer be limited by donor shortages or lifelong immunosuppression,” Dr. Sogawa said.

A Global Perspective on Organ Donation

Having practiced transplant surgery in both Japan and the United States, Dr. Sogawa has experienced two very different organ donation systems.

The United States, he explained, has one of the world’s most sophisticated deceased organ donation systems. It is built on collaboration among donor families, organ procurement organizations, transplant centers, healthcare professionals, and national oversight. It has saved countless lives and continues to evolve through innovation, accountability, and public engagement.

“The United States system is not perfect, but it is a very efficient system for deceased donor organ transplantation,” he said in the interview. “I think that is something people do not always recognize or appreciate.”

Japan, by comparison, continues to have relatively few deceased organ donors, making living donor liver transplantation an essential lifesaving therapy. Experiencing both systems has reinforced Dr. Sogawa’s belief that countries can learn from one another while working toward the same goal: saving more lives through organ donation.

To sustain and strengthen the U.S. system, he emphasized, the transplant community must continue to earn public confidence through trust, transparency, education, and community partnership.

A Moment That Made It Worth It

Group of walkers at an organ donation walk

One patient story has stayed with Dr. Sogawa since coming to Yale. The patient needed both a liver and kidney transplant. She had been in and out of the hospital and faced significant risk factors that made the decision complex.

After careful discussion and risk calculation, the team moved forward.

Three months later, she was doing well. Around her one-year transplant anniversary, Dr. Sogawa saw her at an organ donation walk.

“That was the moment I thought, ‘It was worth it,’” he said.

For donor families, living donors, transplant recipients, medical professionals, and advocates, these are the moments that show what donation makes possible. A decision made by one person can create a future for another.

A Message for Those Who Are Unsure About Donation

Many people have questions about organ donation. Some have heard myths. Others are unsure whether their decision truly matters. Dr. Sogawa’s message is clear.

“Every organ donor’s action leaves an extraordinary legacy,” he said. “Every transplant gives someone a second chance, whether it comes from a deceased donor or a living donor.”

He also emphasized that the transplant community has a responsibility to earn public trust.

“As professionals, we have to earn trust from the community through transparency,” he said. “But transplantation is such a wonderful act, and it truly changes lives.”

In our conversation, Dr. Sogawa repeatedly returned to the same essential message: every transplant begins with an extraordinary act of generosity, every organ donor leaves an enduring legacy, and trust and transparency are the foundation of organ donation.

What Dr. Sogawa Hopes People Remember

Dr. Sogawa hopes people remember that transplantation is built on generosity, science, teamwork, and trust.

His message can be summed up in several powerful ideas:

Lead with passion, compassion, and empathy.
Push the boundaries of transplantation to save more lives.
Liver transplantation is the ultimate team sport.
Innovation should always improve patients’ lives.
Every transplant begins with an extraordinary act of generosity.
Every organ donor leaves an enduring legacy.
Trust and transparency are the foundation of organ donation.

Your Decision Matters

At Donate Life CT, we believe education, trust, and conversation are essential. Registering as an organ and tissue donor is a powerful act of generosity. It is also a decision worth sharing with your family, so your wishes are known.

As Dr. Sogawa reminded us, everyone in this community has a role to play.

“We do things in different roles, but we are all trying to achieve the same thing: saving lives.”

You can help. Learn the facts. Talk with your loved ones. Register your decision on the Donate Life CT Be a Donor Page.

Because donation is more than a medical process. It is hope, legacy, and life.

Transplant surgeon Thomas Starzl poses for a photo on the rooftop of his office building at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. — Dr. Thomas Starzl

Photo Credit: Bill Cramer

Who Was Dr. Thomas Starzl?

Dr. Thomas E. Starzl is widely recognized as one of the most important figures in the history of transplantation. Often called the father of modern transplantation, his work helped establish liver transplantation as a clinical reality and advanced the science of immunosuppression, organ preservation, and transplant surgery.

For Dr. Sogawa, Starzl was more than a historical figure. He was a personal hero and professional model.

“As a student of Dr. Starzl and the people who created this great field, I feel obligated to push the boundaries and advance the field because we can save more people,” Dr. Sogawa said.

Photo of the liver in the First NMP case performed at Duke University in the Metra (OrganOx, Oxford, UK) randomized clinical trial, Feb 2017 — Normothermic Machine Perfusion at DukeHealth

Photo Credit: DukeHealth

What Is Normothermic Machine Perfusion?

Normothermic machine perfusion is an organ preservation technology used in liver transplantation. It allows a donor liver to function outside the body while oxygenated blood circulates through it. This gives transplant teams more information about the organ and may allow some organs to be improved before transplant.

Dr. Sogawa said this technology can improve donor organ quality, expand the types of organs that can be used, reduce complications, and help patients recover more quickly.

For patients waiting for a transplant, advances like this matter because they may help more donated organs become lifesaving gifts.

Graphic depicting gene cell therapy — Cell and Gene Therapies

What Is Xenotransplantation?

Xenotransplantation is the transplantation of organs, tissues, or cells from one species to another. In recent years, genetically engineered animal organs have become one of the most closely watched areas of research because of their potential to help address the shortage of human donor organs.

Dr. Sogawa believes xenotransplantation may be one of the future solutions to organ shortage, particularly for kidney transplantation.

“Xenotransplantation may be around the corner for kidney transplantation,” he said. “Liver transplantation still has many obstacles, but kidney clinical trials are about to start.”

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Twice Saved:

Melissa Reynolds’ Extraordinary Journey Through Two Organ Transplants

Every organ donor makes a choice that echoes long after they’re gone. For Melissa Reynolds, two such choices — made by two strangers — kept her here to do the work she was born to do.

On the evening of October 9, 2024, Melissa Reynolds walked into Hartford Hospital not knowing she would not walk out again for four months.

She hadn’t planned to be admitted. She had gone from her endocrinologist’s office directly to the emergency department at her doctor’s insistence, bags unpacked, husband by her side, her mother meeting them there. Melissa, a recreational therapist at the Institute of Living since 2007 — one of Connecticut’s premier psychiatric care facilities — had spent years caring for some of the state’s most vulnerable people. She knew how hospitals worked. She didn’t think she was that sick.

She was wrong.

What followed was one of the most remarkable — and harrowing — journeys of survival that Donate Life Connecticut has ever had the privilege of hearing. It is a story about the fragility of life and the stunning resilience of the human spirit. It is a story about the extraordinary generosity of organ donors and the ripple effect of their gift. And it is a story about a woman who, even at her sickest, was already thinking about how she would give back.

A Health History She Couldn’t Outrun

Melissa had always known her immune system was compromised. She had fatty liver disease and a cluster of autoimmune conditions that made her body work harder than most just to get through the day. Working in a residential psychiatric program since the height of the pandemic in 2020, she had been exposed to illness repeatedly — and had come through it each time.

In June of 2024, she caught COVID again. It wasn’t the first time, and initially, it didn’t seem like the last. But this time, she didn’t fully bounce back. She pushed through — traveling internationally, working, living — even as her body was quietly losing a battle she didn’t know she was fighting.

“I was tired. I knew I was sick, but since COVID in 2020, I was always kind of sick. It was hard to know when things had really changed.”

By the time her endocrinologist examined her in early October, he couldn’t send her home. He triaged her directly to Hartford Hospital.

Into the ICU

The emergency department at Hartford Hospital was crowded the night Melissa arrived. She waited hours. When she was finally admitted, she had no idea how long she would be there. Her MELD score — a measurement of liver disease severity used to prioritize transplant candidates — was critically high.

Over the weeks that followed, Melissa was transferred between floors multiple times. Codes were called. She was moved to a cardiac unit. She experienced what clinicians call ICU delirium — a state of profound disorientation brought on by critical illness, sedation, and the relentless sensory disruption of intensive care. For Melissa, it was severe. The boundary between what was real and what wasn’t collapsed entirely.

“I thought I was dead. I saw a lot of themes around death. And there was always some truth to what I was seeing — I was dying. I just didn’t know it at the time.”

She would look over from her bed, confused, not knowing where she was or what day it was, and find a nurse standing there, smiling. “I got you. I got you.” It was a face she came to anchor herself to — a steady, human presence in the chaos. When the delirium finally lifted, she looked at that same nurse and thought: “Oh my God. You’re real.”

“I think what they say is true,” she reflects. “You don’t always remember what people did, but you always remember how they made you feel.”

Melissa spent at least six weeks — by some accounts, eight — in the ICU. Her coworkers at the Institute of Living didn’t know if she was coming back. Her family gathered. They had the kinds of conversations families have when hope is uncertain, and decisions are urgent. The news was that heavy.

The Call That Changed Everything

Two days after Thanksgiving 2024, a doctor came to Melissa’s bedside and told her they had found a liver.

She doesn’t remember every word of that conversation. She was still fragile, still in and out of clarity. But she remembers the essential facts: the donor was a woman in her late 30s who had died, the doctor believed, in a car accident. Young. Someone with a whole life ahead of her.

“I wish I could have remembered more from when he told me. But I was just so focused on what was happening next.”

What happened next was a full liver transplant performed overnight by Dr. Serrano and Dr. Emanuel. Because it was a holiday weekend, both surgeons worked through the night together. By Sunday morning, Melissa’s husband received a call. The surgery had gone well.

She came off the ventilator on Tuesday. Physical therapy began on Friday.

November 30, 2024. That date is now etched into Melissa Reynolds’ life the way birthdays are — because in every meaningful sense, it was one.

A Long Way Home

Recovery in the ICU and rehabilitation unit was not linear. Melissa went back and forth between care floors, navigated setback after setback, and slowly, painstakingly, began to rebuild what her body had lost. She relearned how to stand. She worked with physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists. She continued dialysis three times a week, because the liver transplant had left her kidneys under severe strain.

She remembers a moment with her physical therapy team that she still talks about. She was frustrated. Her body wasn’t doing what she told it to. She couldn’t understand why something so simple felt impossible.

“They got down to my level and said, ‘You just had a liver transplant. You are so strong.’ And that was almost what I needed to keep going.”

A doctor on the rehabilitation unit told her she was one of the most motivated patients they had ever had. Melissa’s response has stayed with everyone who heard it:

“I have to be — and I have to stay positive — because I can’t even figure out how to get up or stand up. I have to get out of this hospital. I have a life left to live. I have to get back to work someday.”

That drive — paired with the daily encouragement of the nurses, therapists, dietary aides, and every staff member who walked through her door — is what she credits with pulling her through. “I am so thankful for the staff who kept me going every day and helped me to stay positive and focused,” she says. “Without them, I don’t think I could have done it.”

There were hard moments, too. One of them came when a doctor quietly told her that she would not be going home for Christmas. Melissa processed that one alone. She didn’t tell her family right away. She sat with it.

“I thought, you know what — get through it. This sucks. But get through it.”

She did. She was discharged on February 12, 2025, after 126 days in the hospital. When the elevator doors opened in the lobby, she was sitting in a wheelchair. Waiting for her — having stood in that lobby for nearly an hour — were her supervisor, a coworker, and four of her psychiatric clients, holding welcome home signs they had made themselves.

“I just started crying. The nurse was telling me I had to get in the car because it was freezing. But I couldn’t move. These are people I care for. And they came to wait for me.”

Finding a New Normal

Melissa started outpatient dialysis the very next day. Her schedule was three sessions a week. Doctors’ appointments filled the gaps. Home therapy continued. She leaned into music — always a coping skill, now a daily anchor — and into reading, which she had always loved but never made enough time for. She allowed herself, for the first time, the gift of stillness.

She also set a goal: she was going back to work.

On August 27, 2025, Melissa returned to the Institute of Living — 20 hours a week, working her schedule around dialysis days. The staff and clients who had once quietly prepared themselves for her absence watched her come through the door.

“People didn’t think I was going to make it. A lot of people had come to say goodbye. My coworkers had to grieve me at one point. And then I just walked back in.”

That same fall, in September 2025, Melissa attended the Donate Life Connecticut Gala — a celebration of the lives that organ donation touches. What most people in that room didn’t know was that she was desperately ill that night. She had been on dialysis earlier that day. She was nauseated throughout the event. She had been sick in the parking lot on the way in.

She stayed until the end.

That night, a woman named Danielle quietly followed her out and asked if she was okay. Danielle had walked her own transplant journey and recognized the signs. In that moment, a friendship was born — the kind that only forms between people who understand each other without explanation.

The Second Gift

By the fall of 2025, Melissa was on the kidney transplant list. After a liver transplant, recipients are given priority consideration for a kidney if one is needed within a certain timeframe — an acknowledgment of the physical toll the first surgery takes on the body’s other organs. Melissa was eager. She pushed her care team. “Can we do April? Let’s go. Let’s get this done.”

It doesn’t work like that. She knew that, too.

The night before Thanksgiving, she was at home with her family, laughing about food. She had missed every holiday the year before and was talking about how much she couldn’t wait to eat. She had all but given up on the kidney coming before the new year.

At 6:30 the next morning, her phone rang. She had one hour.

“I went around like a little kid on Christmas. I woke up my parents. I woke up my husband. I said, I’m getting a kidney!”

The surgery was on November 17, 2025. Her second deceased donor — this time, a man. She went in on a Monday. She was discharged on Friday.

Four days, compared to four months.

“The first time around was my whole journey. The kidney was a much different experience.”

Why She Tells Her Story

When Donate Life Connecticut asked Melissa what she hoped people would take from hearing her story, she didn’t hesitate.

“I want to bring awareness to organ donation. But I also want to acknowledge the care that hospital staff gives every single day — because without the people inside those walls, I don’t think I would be here. I had incredible support on the outside. But the people who were with me 24 hours a day, who showed up every shift, who encouraged me and made me laugh and pushed me — they saved my life, too.”

Melissa had registered as an organ donor at sixteen years old. She didn’t know anyone who had received a transplant. She had never thought deeply about what it meant. When she was asked at the DMV, her instinct was simply: if something happened to me, why wouldn’t I?

“To me, it was just being a human.”

Now she is on the other side of that question — twice over. Two people she will never meet made decisions that kept her alive. She plans to write to both of their families when she’s ready. She has been gathering the courage for it, the way you gather yourself before something that matters deeply.

In the meantime, she is giving back in every way she can. She is volunteering with Donate Life Connecticut events. She has signed up for the walk. She is working toward the Dragon Boat race. And she is returning to the Institute of Living — full time now — to the clients and colleagues who once said goodbye and then watched, astonished, as she walked back through the door.

The Full Circle

Donate Life Connecticut’s Marketing Director, Barb Doyle, spent the first chapter of her career as an occupational therapist working in psychiatric rehabilitation. She knows the Institute of Living. She knows the particular kind of person it takes to do that work — the patience, the empathy, the humanistic commitment to showing up for people whose struggles are invisible to the outside world.

When she heard Melissa’s story, she said what everyone in the room was feeling:

“Through the gift of these two people who gave their organs when they could no longer take them with them, they have kept you serving the people who so desperately need you. That is a full-circle moment.”

Melissa Reynolds is a recreational therapist, a transplant recipient, a survivor, and now a voice for organ donation in Connecticut. She is proof that one decision, made by a stranger at a DMV counter, made by a family in the worst moment of their lives, can preserve something irreplaceable in this world.

You Can Make the Same Choice

Melissa’s donors registered their decision before they ever needed to. That’s how it works. You don’t know when the moment will come — for you, or for someone waiting for the call that changes everything.

If you haven’t registered as an organ, eye, and tissue donor, you can do so today at registerme.org. It takes less than two minutes.

And if Melissa’s story moved you, stay with us. This blog is just beginning. We’ll be sharing the stories of organ recipients, living donors, and donor families across Connecticut. Because every one of these stories is proof of what is possible when we choose to give.

Donate Life Connecticut is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of organ, eye, and tissue donation throughout Connecticut.

Do you have a story to share? We’d love to hear from you. Contact us here.