Thoughts about Organ Donors?

ckh23, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2011

This is the organization in our area that handles organ donation, they have a lot of information on their site.

http://www.donors1.org/

I personally I am an organ donor because I feel like if I don't need them and someone else can you use them, then they can have them.

To address what you saw on TV, it is a total myth. In fact it is quite the opposite. A lot of work goes into keeping potential organ donors alive because as long as the patient is alive, the best chance for procurement.

Sun0408, ASN, RN · Jul 21, 2011

Yes I am.. I am also not worried about a Dr "not" saving my life just to be a donor.. Restrictions are heavy and in most cases the donor has had brain death. Many that are donors never actually get to donate organs because of sudden death, drug use, life style, medical history etc.. But they can still donate tissue, eyes, skin etc..

I really wished more people understood what donation was and was not so more would/could donate.. Until a few years ago if a person was an organ donor, it was still left up to the family to give the final yes or no in my state.. It can be a touchy subject.

cherrybreeze, ADN, RN · Jul 21, 2011

You say in your post that you realize it was TV....keep remembering that, because in NO way, in real life, would anyone NOT try harder to save your life because you are an organ donor. There are strict criteria that determines brain death (which would have to occur in order to donate your heart, for example; if you suffer cardiac arrest you can no longer donate your heart).

Brain death is not something that is a "maybe," or "most likely." If you are brain dead, you are dead, and you don't overcome or survive it. If you are NOT brain dead, you will be treated and every effort will be made to save your life. In fact, the issue of whether or not you are a donor likely won't even be raised unless the potential to donate is imminent.

Thank you for choosing to be a donor. I am the type that doesn't understand why anyone would choose NOT to, but I know many don't. For me, if I'm no longer using my lungs or my heart or my kidneys, why shouldn't someone else get the chance?

Your fear is an understandable one, but please know that it isn't true.

DH.nurse · Jul 21, 2011

The medical team working on you to save your life is not the team that would be there to work on organizing and procuring your organs and tissue donations.

Trauma Columnist · Jul 21, 2011

I work in nephrology, mostly dialysis. So, I work with transplant pts.

Being a donor is a no-brainer for me - yes.

Then, there are living donors, someone who donates an organ, like a kidney or part of a liver. This process also produces more organs.

allnurses Guide · Jul 21, 2011

Absolutely we go for saving you. Organ donation is a distant second. We don't know if you are or not, or many times if you would be a candidate for the major organs. Donation decisions come after death (brain death), not before.

One of my Scouts actually asked me that a few years ago, said the big rumor in the high schools was for teenagers in accidents were automatically considered for donors before saving lives. I told him we fight harder and longer on kids/teens, sometimes beyond reason because it is so traumatic to lose young people.

canesdukegirl, BSN, RN · Jul 22, 2011

Being a donor is a no-brainer for me - yes.

Very punny, Brian:)

I agree with the posters on this thread expressing that the TV show you were watching must have been trying to scare the bejeezus out of its viewers. Total bunk.

Now you must ask yourself the logical question...how would a team of docs/nurses/staff NOT try to save you because they wanted to keep your organs? Think about that. We can't use organs that are not perfused.

As a few posters stated, most of the organs donated are the result of brain death. Cherry said it best. If you are brain dead, you are brain dead. (Kind of like if you are pregnant, you are pregnant.) Not all of the organs harvested can actually be used. There are many elements to consider prior to harvesting organs.

Perhaps the following scenario will make things more clear:

35 year old male suffered a traumatic brain injury as the result of an MVA. He is stabilized in the ER, never regains consciousness, does not follow basic commands, does not respond to pain. (The Glasgow Coma scale is what we use to assess neurological response.) His injuries have rendered him 'brain dead'. MANY tests are run prior to the attending physician actually declaring brain death. Only then is the family contacted by a donor team. While discussions commence with the donor team and the family, the pt is kept on life support. Nothing else is done during this point. The family is given time to discuss amongst themselves the choice to donate organs. If they don't, then the pt is taken off of life support and 'decedent care' takes over to help the family arrange for burial/mortuary services. The body goes to the morgue at this point.

If the family DOES agree to organ donation, testing begins. If blood types match a potential recipient on the list, then the recipient is alerted to come to the hospital for a potential transplant. They come into the hospital, get registered, and are sent up the OR holding area where they wait for the organs to be harvested. After the organs are harvested, HLA typing begins, the integrity of the organs are determined by the transplant surgeons. Sometimes the organs are good and we can go ahead with the transplant, but many times (heart breakingly), the organs are not acceptable for a myriad of reasons, and the transplant surgeon must break the bad news to the recipient. They go back on the list.

Keep in mind that the attending physician that declared the pt brain dead is NOT involved with the organ harvest. That is a conflict of interest. There are many strict guidelines that must be followed regarding organ transplants. Often times, the transplant surgeons harvesting the organs are from another hospital altogether, because they have potential recipients at their own hospital, and after harvesting the organs, must then fly back with organs in a cooler. I will never forget one Thanksgiving that I had to work with several teams of organ procurement surgeons. The heart and lungs went to one hospital, one kidney stayed with my hospital, the other went to a local hospital, and the liver went to an out of state hospital. It is a very tedious and meticulous process.

I hope this brief synopsis has made the process of organ donation more clear. Please disregard TV. The main focus of broadcast companies is to get ratings up. To do so, they must get a rise out of viewers. This is their first priority. Factual information is largely distorted to give a sensational slant to the story.

GadgetRN71, ASN, RN · Jul 22, 2011

I'm not. Bad personal experience with a family member and what I've observed on the job. Just my personal opinion- nothing against someone who wants to be an organ donor.

szeles23 · Jul 22, 2011

I'm an organ donor, I think I have been since I started driving. Honestly I think I checked the box just to get the $4 discount at 16yo (its comical now). Of course as I gained a wider view of the world, had children, and started pursuing nursing it solidified my reason to be an organ donor. If I can benefit someone else by them having a random organ that I have no need for (i.e. being braindead), then by all means they are welcome to have it.

They are already using a persons own stem cells to grow and then transplant tracheas, heart valves, ears, and cartilage, along with skin and other things, Organ donation might even be obsolete within the next 30 years.

tvccrn, ASN, RN · Jul 22, 2011

I was 22 when my first husband died and I agreed to donate his organs. During the holiday season I was depressed because I was alone and my two young sons were without a father.

Then one day I received a letter from the organ donation society. It was forwarded from the families of the man that had received my husbands liver. It told me of man who was near death until his transplant, his family resigned to life without him and how he was now able to live because of my selfless action.

From that day forward I have been an organ donor and have changed he mind of most of my family as well..

Hey, I don't need them where I'm going!!

tachy · Jul 22, 2011

I'm a registered organ donor, and used to work for the organ donation agency in my state. My mother was an organ donor, she suffered a sudden and tragic brain death at a young age. When we were approached about donation, there was no question in our minds that she would have wanted to help others - it's just the kind of person she was.

The thing is, no one working in a hospital caring for an acutely ill patient typically knows weather or not that person is an organ donor until the question is raised (as in when everything possible has been done to try and save that person, and all attempts have failed). When you are admitted to the hospital, you are not asked if you are an organ donor. If you are brought in by ambulance from a car wreck, no one is attempting to look through your wallet to find out if you are a registered donor. Unless one of my patients were to tell me they were a donor, I would have no way of knowing that. You are not branded with this information, and it would never be used against efforts to save your life.

As a previous poster mentioned, the staff that handles organ donation is a completely separate entity from hospital staff. Hospital staff will only contact these people when brain death has occured, and they do so in every case, because it is the organ procurement agency that will approach the family to find out if the patient was a donor, not the hospital staff.

The fear that efforts will not be made to save you if you are an organ donor is a common MYTH.