Dr. Richard Darling, DDS, Named NASW’s
 
National Public Citizen of the Year

Washington — The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is pleased to name Dr. Richard Darling, DDS, as the 2003 Public Citizen of the Year for his work which exemplifies the values and mission of professional social work.

Dr. Darling is a dentist from southern California who contracted Hepatitis C through a blood transfusion following a car accident. He has personally survived a coma and has undergone three liver transplants. Because of his own near death experience, Dr. Darling founded, and is co-moderator of, the Coachella Valley Hepatitis C Liver Disease and Transplant Support Group, which provides support, promotes education, generates awareness, and advocates for quality medical care for all people with liver disease. Through his own experiences and the autobiographical memoir that he wrote, Coma Life, he is able to teach other patients how to find strength through their own spiritual awareness, as he unselfishly provides transplant patients with strength and encouragement. Coma Life is now entering its 4th Edition and has been a great source of information for patients in the USA, Canada and Great Britain.

Dr. Darling is also the founder of The FAIR Foundation — a national organization with thousands of members and supporters in all fifty states whose goal is fair and equitable research distributions by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with an emphasis on mortality. Under the FAIR Foundation formulas, secondary factors insure that diseases that kill few but cause great suffering would also receive increased funding from the NIH. The FAIR Foundation also helps pre- and post-transplant patients nationally.

As a member of the Board of Directors of the United Organ Transplant Association, Dr. Darling speaks publicly to promote organ donation and to clarify the facts versus the myths regarding the “Gift of Life.” Each year, approximately 92,000 people in the United States wait for organ transplants. Thousands in the U.S. will die while waiting, compared to Spain, which has the highest donation rate in the world. Living liver donors can give just part of their livers to a recipient, and, in six to 12 weeks, the sections in both donor and recipient will grow into whole livers Dr. Darling strives to educate the public that, as organ and tissue donors, they can save eight lives and enhance the lives of up to 50 others. In addition, he stresses that the answers to the organ-donor crisis are the policies of Presumed Consent and financial remuneration to donor families for donor expenses.

Based on the belief that he has personally been blessed, Dr. Darling feels a responsibility to give back to the community and to patients waiting for lifesaving organ donations. He spends hours in the Loma Linda University Medical Center Liver Transplant Intensive Care Unit, where he lifts patient’s spirits, educates them about what to expect in the operating room, and helps them focus on the positive. Dr. Darling has made significant contributions to the health and welfare of many who hope for the “Gift of Life.”

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW), in Washington, DC, is the largest membership organization of professional social workers with nearly 150,000 members.  It promotes, develops and protects the practice of social work and social workers.  NASW also seeks to enhance the well being of individuals, families and communities through advocacy.