Neuropsychiatric complications of hyperacute transplant rejection: A psychiatrist-patient’s experience and a brief literature review.

Abstract

In this clinical case, the patient (a psychiatrist and one of the authors) experienced a variety of hyperacutemedical and neuro-psychiatric complications after kidney transplant rejection. The patient’s personal reflectionsand observations, communications with his wife, descriptions of clinical and experiential events, and medicalinterventions at different stages of the process are presented. Literature on the phenomenology of these complicationsand the bio-psycho-socio-cultural factors at play are reviewed. The unique perception of the psychiatrist’s ownexperience lends support to recommendations regarding roles of different discipline members of the transplantteam, and procedures for adequate clinical management of kidney transplant rejection.(Rev Neuropsiquiatr 2009;72:67-74).