Episode 333- The Gift Of Life. With Dorrie Dils

One choice at the DMV can ripple into hundreds of surgeries, thousands of hospital hours, and a second chance at life for people you’ll never meet. From the 2026 Mackinac Policy Conference, we sit down with Dorrie Dils from Gift of Life Michigan to unpack what actually happens when someone becomes an organ and tissue donor and why the system works only when families and clinicians can move with clarity and speed.

We talk about Gift of Life Michigan’s role as the state’s organ procurement organization for deceased donation, how they coordinate with Michigan transplant centers, and how the program has scaled since 2016 from a few hundred donors a year to a pace of 600 plus donors, resulting in about 1,400 life-saving organ transplants annually. Along the way, we get into what “first of its kind” transplant procedures can mean for care in Michigan, plus the difference between living donation handled by transplant centers and deceased donation facilitated through Gift of Life.

The heart of the conversation is human. Donor families face the worst day of their lives, yet many find real healing in knowing their loved one saved others. We also discuss why some organs carry extreme urgency, especially liver failure, where time is short without a transplant. Finally, Dorrie shares a practical policy push with big potential: expanding organ and tissue donation education in Michigan high schools so teens understand the decision before they’re asked to register for the donor registry when getting a driver’s license.

If you care about organ donation, transplantation, Michigan health policy, or simply making sure your own wishes are known, listen now, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave us a review so more people can find these conversations.

Transcript

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Announcer  
Welcome to season seven of the Common Bridge, hosted by Richard Helppie, a leading analyst, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. Now expanded with healthcare, education, finance, science, and world affairs bridges, the podcast, now in its seventh season, with an audience of over 7 million worldwide, explores issues in a fiercely nonpartisan way. Find us at the Common Bridge at Substack.com, YouTube, and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Announcer  
This episode of the Common Bridge is part of a special 21-part series of interviews recorded with healthcare leaders from across Michigan during the 2026 Mackinac Policy Conference, in partnership with the Michigan Health and Hospital Association. In these short conversations with his guests, Rich explores regulation, cost pressures, workforce challenges, and the future of healthcare in Michigan and around the country. We're at the Mackinaw Policy Conference today on behalf of the Michigan Health and Hospital Association and the Common Bridge Podcast and the Substack, 

Richard Helppie 
I'm your host Rich Helppie, and we're going to spend some time today with Dory Dills. She is from Gift of Life, Michigan. So, welcome to the podcast.

Dorrie Dils  
Thank you for having me.

Richard Helppie 
Tell us a little bit about what you're doing at the Gift of Life.

Dorrie Dils 
So, Gift of Life Michigan is Michigan's organ and tissue donor program. We have about 400 employees that provide donation services throughout the state of Michigan. So, anytime someone gets an organ donor from a deceased donor, Gift of Life Michigan has facilitated that process.

Richard Helppie 
I think I just heard about a first of its kind transplant. Tell us about that. Are you involved with that?

Dorrie Dils 
Yes, I'm not sure if our organization provided those organs or not, because sometimes Michigan transplant centers bring organs in from other states too. But yes, I believe it was an intestine and kidney, first time done in Michigan and done at Henry Ford. But we do work a lot with all the Michigan transplant centers, and Henry Ford and Michigan Medicine are both large, growing liver programs, and we provide a lot of those livers for their patients.

Richard Helppie 
And how has the Gift of Life evolved since your time?

Dorrie Dils 
So I came to Gift of Life Michigan in 2016, and since that time, we've doubled our staff. We've doubled the number of organ donors that we're doing. Back in 2016, we were doing about 230, 250 organ donors. This year, we're on track to do over 600, and that results in about 1400 life-saving organ transplants. And in 2016, we were doing about 800. So the donation program has grown immensely since I've been there.

Richard Helppie 
Now, is the service area or the service source always deceased, or is it sometimes kidney transplant from a living donor to living donor?

Dorrie Dils 
So our work is always with deceased individuals. When when people get a living transplant, they do that facilitated through their transplant center. So if I needed a kidney transplant and I had someone that was willing to donate to me, we would work solely with the transplant center. But organ procurement organizations like mine work exclusively in deceased donation.

Richard Helppie 
And when you think about the messages you want to give the public, what do you want them to hear about Gifted Life, and how perhaps they might support it?

Dorrie Dils  
Well, first and foremost, we encourage people to have a discussion with their family. You know, organ donation is something we we know from surveys that most people would be willing to do should something happen to them, but that doesn't always equate to everyone who has signed up in the Michigan donor registry and made that decision. There's over four and a half million adults in there right now, but there are many more that have not made that indication for whatever reason. But having a conversation with your family about the importance of donation and your desire to help someone at the end of your life, if that opportunity presents, would be the most important thing that people can do..

Richard Helppie  
I'm sure in your work you've seen many miracles occur. Are there any that come to mind that are particularly touching?

Dorrie Dils  
Yeah, you know I've been in this field for 35 years, and while you know we deal with donor families on the worst day of their life, you know they've they've faced a tragic and sudden loss that is unimaginable, and I think the miracles that I get to witness every day are not just the the miracles of those who receive transplants and how transformative. Their lives become because of it, but also what happens with donor families and the the knowledge that their loved one at the end of their life saves someone else, and you know most most of us won't have an opportunity to be an organ donor. We'll die of extremely old age or or some disease that would prevent that from happening, but when the opportunity is there for families, the the fact that that becomes part of their story and really helps them with their grief and the tremendous loss that they experience, it's it's always awe inspiring for me to witness how those families handle that that graciousness and how they continue to tell that story to encourage others to become donors.

Richard Helppie 
So it's not only the joy of the recipient who has an opportunity for a longer life, but it's also a healing part of the mourning for the donor family.

Dorrie Dils  
Absolutely, is and yeah, the miracle of of patients who've received an organ. There are countless stories. Actually, at this conference, one of our board members, Rachel Kuntz, who runs a policy company in Lansing, her her remarkable heart transplant, where you know she was completely healthy and fine in the prime of her life, and at her son's, I think concert of some sort, and wasn't feeling well. Went to the emergency room, and three days later was in complete heart failure, and and got a heart transplant very very quickly, which is unusual. Otherwise, she would have died, and and now she's an active board member, and she shares her story. But you know, someone who would have never thought transplant would have entered her life, and and and yet it's it's completely changed her, and and she's a remarkable person.

Richard Helppie 
It is certainly a good news story. I had actually dinner this past Saturday with some friends, and she received a liver back in January, and it's doing phenomenal. Yeah, you might not even know unless she told you she looks like she's in robust health, great color on her skin, and everything.

Dorrie Dils 
Yeah, liver patients are particularly challenging because, you know, with kidneys you have dialysis. With heart disease, there are assist devices that'll keep the heart pumping. The liver or the lung has the ventilator, but when your liver fails, you have a very short period of time before you either get a new liver or you're going to die from it, and and those patients that are otherwise healthy but have liver failure do remarkably well. But it's a definitely a transformative gift.

Richard Helppie 
Are there any policy changes that you could recommend? You've got a lot of powerful people up here on the island that you'd want them to hear.

Dorrie Dils 
Well, when it comes to the state level, one of the policies that we're really trying to get through is an education policy. Michigan is a state that does not require high schoolers to receive information in school about organ and tissue donation before they go to get their driver's license, and as such, Michigan teens register to be donors at a much lower rate than surrounding states who do have that requirement. And so we we actually have an education bill that's making its way through. It's not a mandate; it's a recommendation because you know mandate we weren't able to get in there, but we do believe it'll open doors for us right now. There are 1,800 Michigan high schools. We're in about 500 providing education with our all of us award-winning program, but we're not in every school, and we need to be because teenagers are going to get their license, having no information about what it means to say yes or no to that question when they're at the Secretary of State's office. And so, one of my purposes of being here this week is to talk to legislators about getting that through.

Richard Helppie  
I hope that they've heard the message loud and clear.

Dorrie Dils 
My understanding is going to be introduced in the House in the committee on the third, so we're hopeful.

Richard Helppie 
Well, keep us updated, please. We've been talking to Dori Dills of Gift of Life Michigan, and on behalf of the Michigan Health and Hospital Association and the Common Bridge podcast on Substack. This is your host Rich Healthy signing off.

Announcer  
Thank you for joining us on the Common Bridge, where we continue to seek clarity across divided lines. Subscribe and support the Common Bridge on Substack, YouTube, and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Until next time. We invite you to stay informed, stay engaged, and help build a bridge of common understanding.