103
May 29, 1998

Scenes from A Transplant

An NPR reporter leaves her three-year-old son and heads to Omaha—for cancer treatment—a last chance to save her life. After years of covering stories about medicine, Rebecca Perl enters the hospital as a patient. She moves from the world of healthy people into the world of sick ones. What she sees and what she learns.

Prologue

Ira Glass talks about a man named Paul Cowan, who wrote a story about becoming ill for The Village Voice.
Act One

Scenes from a Transplant

After years of covering stories about medicine, NPR Reporter Rebecca Perl enters the hospital as a patient. She moves from the world of healthy people into the world of sick ones. What she sees and what she learns.

This piece, which was produced by Dan Collison for Long Haul Productions, received the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) in the summer of '99. It got a perfect score, with one judge saying it was the best documentary he'd ever heard.