The First Kidney Transplant On TV On this date in 1975, the "Today Show" broadcast the first live kidney transplant on television. Noted transplant surgeon Samuel L. Kountz performed the operation. After it ended, 20,000 people contacted the NBC show to offer their own kidneys for transplant. While still a surgical resident at Stanford Universitys School of Medicine, Kountz and Roy Cohn, a professor there, performed the first kidney transplant between nonidentical relatives. In this case, a child donated a kidney to her mother. The physicians received worldwide attention when the operation succeeded. Before this, only a kidney from one identical twin had been transplanted to save the life of the twin suffering from kidney disease. In 1954, the first successful operation of this kind was performed at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, when a kidney from Ronald Herrick was transplanted into identical twin Richard Herrick, who was dying of kidney failure.
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