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Marie-Chantal Fortin, MD

Award: KRESCENT New Investigator Award, Co-funded with FRSQ
Institution: CRCHUM - Hôpital Notre-Dame
Year: 2011-2014

Dr. Marie-Chantal Fortin is a new investigator at the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal. She obtained her M.D. from the Université de Sherbrooke and completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Hubert Doucet at the Université de Montreal, funded by the Kidney Foundation, the Canadian Society of Transplantation and the Institute of Immunity and Infection of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Type O blood group recipients are at a disadvantage in kidney Exchange Programs (EPs) since they can only receive organs from type O donors, whereas type O is a universal donor type. One way to remedy this situation is to offer all type O blood group donors compatible with their non-O recipients an opportunity to participate in an EP. This approach raises important ethical issues, particularly concerning the fairness of allocation procedures. Our research project aims to document the perspectives of stakeholders (transplant professionals, referring nephrologists, pre-dialysis nurses and donor/recipient compatible pairs) regarding the possible participation of compatible pairs in EPs, and to develop preliminary ethical guidelines in this area.