Julian Harmon, an operating room assistant at Temple University Hospital, has lived with kidney disease for almost a decade, writes Courtenay Harris Bond for PhillyVoice.

Every day, while cleaning operating rooms, taking specimens to labs, and transporting patients in and out of surgeries, he remained hopeful that his time would come.

“I would even meet people who were going to get a kidney transplant,” said Harmon.

Finally, on January 6, 2023, he received a call that there was a kidney available for him. He was in one of the operating rooms he knew so well within hours. His life-saving transplant was performed by his colleague, Dr. Kenneth Chavin.

Chavin is director of Temple Health’s Abdominal Organ Transplant Program, and his locker coincidentally is right next to Harmon’s.

“Now we’ve become friends,” said Chavin.

The pair even threw out the first pitch at a Phillies game in April. Their appearance during National Donate Life Month aimed to celebrate and raise awareness about kidney donation.

About 37 million Americans are living with kidney disease, including 808,000 with kidney failure.

Read more about the inspirational story of a kidney donor at Temple Hospital in PhillyVoice.

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