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Did anyone see Monday night's episode of Chicago Hope? One of the storylines was about a man & his wife, the man came in to see a neurosurgeon, who was also a close friend, about an experimental operation. I thought he wanted a pallidotomy at first, but then he said he wanted a fetal tissue transplant; his wife was pregnant, and their fetus would provide the donor tissue. For those who don't watch the show, Chicago Hope is a hospital with physicians who perform many controversial procedures (past episodes include the separation of Siamese twins, a simultaneous heart procedure/cryosurgical aneurysm repair, treatment of AIDS with the malaria virus, etc.). The neurosurgeon agreed to do the surgery, despite his personal misgivings about the procedure itself and the ethical considerations, because the couple had a court order which exempted them from the rule against procuring their own fetus, and because they were personal friends. The day before the surgery, the chief-of-staff finds out about the procedure, and decides that it cannot be done. The Internal Review Board decides that the procedure can be done, because the man does not qualify for any other research studies of this procedure due to his high blood pressure, and he has the court order; there is also a discussion of the chief-of-staff's religious beliefs interfering with the decision-making process (he is Catholic). The neurosurgeon's wife (who is also the head surgical charge nurse) at first refuses to be present at the abortion procedure, due to her own personal crisis regarding an abortion she had in the past, but later decides to provide moral support for her pregnant friend, and holds her hand throughout the abortion. The show ends in surgery with the neurosurgeon injecting the fetal cells into the man's brain. Some more "advertising" for PD; more TV exposure about PD can only help educate the general public about our cause. wjr [log in to unmask]