Anh Nguyen, right, let her friend Penny Pride, left, know she was a match to be her kidney donor on Valentine's Day 2019. Photo credit: Annie Pierce, UC San Diego Health
At first glance, they are simply two treasured friends, swapping stories over iced teas at a favorite local café, the late afternoon sunlight dancing on their smiling faces.
Yet Anh Nguyen's soft-spoken voice grows uncharacteristically animated when she flashes a screenshot of the text message she sent to her friend Penny Pride that changed both of their lives on Valentine's Day, 2019. Nguyen had just received a call from the Center of Transplantation at UC San Diego Health, notifying her that she was a match to donate a kidney that her friend so desperately needed. Knowing Pride was teaching a cooking class at that moment, she excitedly texted her, "We're a match, Penny!"
As the friends reminisce about their kidney transplant memories on this bright winter afternoon, they ultimately land on the exclamation point of the whole story — that Nguyen's incredible Valentine's Day gift was only the beginning of her selfless transplant journey.
She would later go on to donate part of her liver in August 2025 to a young child with liver failure, making her the first double living organ donor at UC San Diego Health. Nguyen's humility is striking. When asked what prompted her to also donate part of her liver to a child she did not know, she simply shrugs.
"I know it sounds crazy," Nguyen reflects, as Pride lovingly squeezes her shoulders. "But I just felt like I had it within me to give again."
An Extraordinarily Uncommon Act
Double living organ donation represents an exceptionally rare phenomenon in the transplant world. There are fewer than 150 people in the United States who are dual organ living donors, according to a 2022 study using national transplant registry data collected since 1994. That's less than one-tenth of one percent of all living donor transplants.
Gabriel Schnickel, MD, MPH, chief of the division of transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery at UC San Diego Health and Nguyen's liver transplant surgeon, emphasizes just how rare Nguyen's generosity is.
"What has struck me most about Anh's willingness to donate both a kidney and later a portion of her liver was the clarity of her intention," said Schnickel, who also serves as executive director of the Center for Research, Education, Innovation and Transformation in Organ Donation (REIMAGINE) at University of California San Diego School of Medicine. "She wasn't motivated by recognition or obligation, but by a deeply grounded sense that she could help another human being in a profound way."
Nearly 7,000 people donate a kidney or a portion of their liver each year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). Yet becoming a living donor twice requires not only exceptional physical health and organ compatibility, but also a rare depth of commitment to helping others.
"There was a quiet confidence and thoughtfulness to Anh's decision-making that reflected both compassion and courage. She asked the right questions, respected the risks, and moved forward with remarkable steadiness," Schnickel recalls.
Anh Nguyen, left, gave the life-saving gift of her kidney to friend Penny Pride, right, at UC San Diego Health. Photo courtesy of Penny Pride
Hope Through Suffering
With Pride by her side at the café, Nguyen reflects to the very beginning of her journey, detailing how her own experience with chronic pain ultimately led to her extraordinary generosity to donate two organs. After suffering a traumatic brain injury that left her with constant headaches for a decade, she ultimately emerged with a profound sense of purpose.
"It was like a new lease on life," Nguyen recalls. "I can empathize with people being in chronic pain. To get to the other side and feel better — it just made me realize what I could do to help others get to that side too."
When she discovered that Pride, her co-worker and friend, was suffering from deteriorating kidney function due to a genetic disease, she saw an opportunity to step in.
"Penny was a mother and a wife with a young child who was about to start dialysis," Nguyen remembers. "It made me incredibly sad to think that she may not be able to be there for them without a new kidney."
Her concern was well-founded. More than 97,000 people are currently waiting for a kidney transplant in the U.S., and approximately 9,000 need a liver, according to UNOS. Many patients never receive the organ they need, and each day, approximately 17 people die waiting for an organ transplant.
"I was in disbelief — so excited, so hopeful, so anxious," Pride says looking at her friend with compassion. "Anh is so selfless, humble, and generous. I truly could not have gotten through the past several years without her in my life and I feel like the luckiest person to know her."
For Nguyen, the decision felt natural. "I didn't do this for attention," she says simply. "I did this just because I thought I could help."
The friends remember sitting side-by-side in the hospital waiting room together in 2019, until they were eventually wheeled into separate operating rooms for the kidney removal and transplant. The moment Nguyen awoke from surgery and learned the transplant had been a success for her friend, she was overcome with joy.
"I felt so grateful that I was healthy to donate and grateful to all the UC San Diego Health doctors and surgical team that made this happen," Nguyen remembers.
Just one day later, Pride walked into Nguyen's hospital recovery room from her own room next door to check on her. "Seeing her presence, larger than life, it really touched me, that she still had so many more moments in this life to experience."
For Pride, the transformation was profound. "Anh has given me the gift of health. Her philanthropy of herself has caught on to everyone she has given to, and I want to be a better human by practicing Anh's philosophy."
A Quiet Second Gift
Olivia Stoddart, RN, was Anh Nguyen's living donor transplant coordinator at UC San Diego Health. Photo courtesy of Anh Nguyen
Four years later, Nguyen was inspired by a television story about a mother searching for a living liver donor for her baby. She found herself wondering if it was possible to donate another organ.
"I just felt like I was healthy, and that I could do a little bit more," Nguyen remembers. "There was more room in me to give."
When Nguyen approached the UC San Diego Health transplant team about donating part of her liver, she requested to be a non-directed donor, giving to whoever matched best.
"The first time around, it was a lot of fanfare, with Penny and her family offering an outpouring of love and support that was incredible," explains Nguyen, a self-described introvert. "But in doing this a second time, I wanted a quieter experience."
The liver is unique — it regenerates, allowing both donor and recipient portions to grow to nearly full size within months. However, the surgery is more complex than kidney donation, requiring careful matching based on liver anatomy, blood type, and size compatibility.
When a young recipient finally matched with Nguyen's liver anatomy last year, she began preparing for the surgery. This time, she told almost no one except her husband, Tony.
Dual-organ donation requires exceptional scrutiny, Schnickel explains. "This is something that comes up very rarely, but just because someone has donated before doesn't automatically exclude them from being considered to donate again. At the same time, approval is never automatic. Each evaluation stands on its own, and the donor's long-term health and well-being always come first."
Even during her recovery in the intensive care unit after her liver donation, Nguyen was thrilled. "To hear the recipient is doing well and the parents are thankful — that just lights me up. It was a few weeks of inconvenience and discomfort for me, yet it was all worth it for years and years of better health for a child."
Olivia Stoddart, RN, living donor transplant coordinator at the Center for Transplantation at UC San Diego Health, recalls with fondness supporting Nguyen through both living organ donations.
"Anh demonstrates what a wonderful impact living donation can have on a donor," Stoddart, a living kidney donor herself, explains. "The emotional benefit of helping her friend with her kidney donation inspired her to seek out ways to continue to help others through liver donation. So many living donors say that they would do it again if they could, and Anh actually did it. She is an inspiration to us all."
The Ripple Effect
Today, Nguyen feels "normal"— as if she'd never had either surgery. "I often forget even now with the liver that I ever donated, because I feel so healthy."
The impact of her gifts extends far beyond her own recovery. Pride's teenage son, Zachary, recently announced his intention to pursue medical school, inspired by watching Nguyen's lifesaving gift to his mother when he was just 10 years old.
"Because of Anh's kidney donation, I was able to be around for all the important milestones in Zachary's life," Pride beams. "He wants to go into medicine because he saw how it changed our lives and the impact it has had on our community."
Schnickel describes the incredible impact of organ donation as dropping a pebble in a pond. "The ripples spread out to touch hundreds of people — the families, the future generations, all the lives these recipients can now touch."
He envisions that Nguyen's story will inspire people to think beyond organ donation alone. "I hope it encourages people to live more compassionately, to feel connected to others, and to take action that benefits someone else. What Anh so beautifully demonstrates is that compassion is not self-sacrifice in a diminishing sense. Acting for the benefit of others often brings meaning, purpose, and fulfillment back to ourselves."
"In the end, her generosity didn't just transform the lives of those she helped, it enriched her own life as well, and that may be the most powerful lesson of all."
As Nguyen reflects on her transplant journey, she returns to the stories that first inspired her — ordinary people donating organs to their friends, family members or co-workers in need. "Personal stories helped me understand someone's suffering and pain, and the hope they had when someone stepped forward to donate. I hope more people will consider living donation because it can make such a difference and help a person live a normal life again."
Overlooking the ocean with her friend by her side, she smiles. "It's pretty powerful."
Gabriel T. Schnickel, MD, MPH
- Transplant and Hepatobiliary Surgeon
- Chief, Division of Transplant and Hepatobiliary Surgery
- Surgical Director, Liver Transplantation
- Professor of Surgery
Become an Organ Donor
Choosing to become an organ donor is the ultimate gift of life to the more than 106,000 people who are on the national organ transplant waiting list.
