Kidney transplants, doctors, and the media.

Last year Australia, with a population only one-quarter that of Britain, did 365 kidney transplant operations compared with the total of 671 in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. In fact, Britain is well down the league table when countries are ranked by the proportion of all patients with renal failure on treatment by dialysis or transplantations; Australia has consistently been close to the top.' Why should Australia have done roughly twice as well as Britain ? Part of the explanation lies in the early history of the treatment of end stage renal failure in Australia, and part in the attitudes to transplantation among doctors, the public, and the press and broadcasting services.