Brandon716
Senior Member
http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/20/steve-jobs-executive-health-technology-transplant.html
Steve Jobs' Stealthy Move
Brian Caulfield, 06.20.09, 11:15 AM EDT
Apple's chief executive reportedly got a liver transplant in Tennessee. Some Memphis residents think they know where.
Is Apple working on a tablet computer? A flat-screen television? Maybe. But the most tantalizing rumor swirling around Apple these days has also been the most seemingly far-out: that Chief Executive Steve Jobs was getting medical treatment in Tennessee.
Alex Haislip, a reporter at Venture Capital Journal, a venture industry trade publication, was the first to put it on the record. A quiet Memphis neighborhood was buzzing, he reported, after a historic local property was sold to a mysterious owner who had installed security cameras and parked a security guard out front. The local scuttlebutt: The mystery mansion was inhabited by none other than Jobs.
The missing piece? Why would Jobs, who underwent surgery to treat an islet cell neuro-endocrine tumor, a rare form of pancreatic cancer, in 2004, and disclosed in January he was suffering from a "hormone imbalance," seek treatment in Memphis? Jobs lives in Palo Alto, Calif., just a few miles from the Stanford Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, both world-class cancer treatment centers.
The Wall Street Journal filled in the missing piece of that puzzle late Friday night, reporting that Jobs had a received a liver transplant in Tennessee two months ago. And suddenly, the weirdest Apple ( AAPL - news - people ) rumor of all--that the legendary chief executive had left the glamour of Silicon Valley to sneak into a sleepy Memphis neighborhood--is looking mighty plausible.
Whether or not it's Jobs, whoever lives in the Memphis mansion had gone out of his way to hide his tracks. Allyson Avera, the real estate agent who sold the property, told Forbesearlier this month she doesn't know who lives there "and if I knew, I wouldn't tell you." And it's still unclear where in Tennesee Jobs got his transplant.
The Memphis mansion is also the former residence of the chancellor of the nearby University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute, a top-flight liver transplant center, is just a short drive away.
Avera added that a lot of high-profile people buy homes near St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to get treatment for themselves or their children. She told the same cautionary tale echoed by several of the neighborhood's residents: one privacy-seeking celebrityhad to move after it got out that he had purchased a place in nearby Germantown, Tenn., so his child could get treatment.
Odds are that bit of local lore is about to get replaced by an even more interesting tale. Haislip, the reporter behind the seemingly wild story that Jobs is in Memphis, has posted additional details from residents who've been on the lookout for Jobs for months now.
I used to be an avid Apple fan back in high school, but switched to Windows and never looked back thereafter. Still I like to keep up on Apple news.
This is pretty amazing news for me, sounds like he found a doctor in the US who was willing to be bought off, put him in front of the transplant waiting list, and got unethical treatment ahead of others in donor lines. It is the only logical explanation as to why he'd choose to live in Memphis and not go to other reputable transplant centers. It certainly is unethical, especially considering treating his liver cancer is likely not going to stop his pancreatic cancer. I can only imagine what kind of deal was worked out...
Ironically I used to live in Midtown Memphis while going to UofM, its a really nice neighborhood, and I can only hope this helps him... Not sure how much its worth since he has pancreatic cancer, but its certainly interesting news!