06/03/2026
Shirene lay in a hospital bed, struggling to breathe. On a piece of paper, she wrote down a list of phone numbers and handed it to her parents.
“If anything happens,” she said, “call these people.”
She was 25 years old.
Just weeks earlier, Shirene had been a first-year resident physician—newly graduated from medical school and beginning the career she had worked years to build. Now, over Thanksgiving, her lungs were failing—and doctors couldn’t determine why. Test after test came back negative. There was no diagnosis—and no treatment to stop it.
Her oxygen levels continued to fall. She was intubated.
Among the numbers on that list were her residency program director and associate program director. As her condition worsened, word reached them, and they urged her family to transfer her to Barnes‑Jewish Hospital for advanced care.
There, WashU Medicine Physicians placed her on ECMO, a form of life support that oxygenates the blood when the lungs can no longer do so. Despite intensive care, her condition continued to decline.
Shirene needed a transplant.
On December 26, 2021, she was listed for transplant. On February 12, 2022, she received a double lung transplant, performed by WashU Medicine thoracic surgeon Ruben Nava Bahena, MD, at Barnes‑Jewish Hospital.
Recovery was slow. Learning to breathe on her own again took time.
“I felt so scared to come off the ventilator,” she says. “I was dependent on it.”
But the care she received while recovering at Barnes‑Jewish extended far beyond the medical care. A nurse swabbed a melted orange ice pop across her lips on a day she couldn’t eat. Therapists prayed with her. One afternoon, ten staff members carefully wheeled her and her equipment outside so she could take her first breath of fresh air in months.
On her 26th birthday, Shirene got a visit from her dad. Because of his cancer, it was the first time they had seen each other in person since her transplant. Two days later, he passed away.
That night, nurses came to Shirene’s bedside so she wouldn’t be alone.
By late May 2022, after nearly six months at Barnes‑Jewish, Shirene was able to go home.
She wrote a letter to her donor’s family: “It’s hard to find the right words,” she says. “But I’m so thankful for my donor, for my donor’s family, and for their decision.”
Also remaining close to Shirene’s heart are her transplant surgeon, Dr. Nava, and the team of nurses and therapists at Barnes-Jewish.
“They didn’t just treat me medically,” she says. “They cared for my emotional and spiritual health, and supported my family as a whole. I’m so glad I was in St. Louis when this happened. Who knows what would’ve happened if I wasn’t.”
Read Shirene’s story to see how organ donation gave her a second chance—and how she found a new calling: https://heyor.ca/6dI6po
In the summer of 2021, just weeks after graduating from medical school, Shirene Philipose, MD, began her first year of residency at a hospital in Kansas City. It was a season of beginnings—new colleagues and new challenges awaited the 25-year-old as she stepped into the role she had worked years t...
