 In 2009, when Jobs received his liver transplant, the average wait time for liver transplantation in the United States for a patient with a MELD score of 38 (a metric of severity of liver disease) was about 1 year.In some regions, the wait time was as short as 4 months, while in others, it was more than 3 years.This variation for a patient with the same illness severity has caused significant controversy over how organs are distributed.