Transplant Coordinator

[grapejuice01]

Im in the process of interviewing for lung transplant coordinator (pre or post... whichever they feel that I fit better in). Ive already completed the interview with the director and I am scheduled to shadow a coordinator in clinic and in the office and meet with the cardiothoracic surgeons next week. I was wondering if anyone could give me some info on what a typical day in the clinic is like so I can do a little research to prepare (or if you have any suggestions on particular topics to brush up on, that would be helpful, too!).

I ordered a few books that should be here on Wednesday to help me prepare, as well, but if anyone has read anything that helped them to build more of an educational background on the profession or to clarify the transplant process, I would appreciate that, too.

I do not have a transplant background (Ive been in the ED since I graduated nursing school) and I want to make myself the strongest candidate possible.

Any other tips??

Thanks!

[Always_Learning, BSN, RN]

Hey there,

Although I am just a lowly nursing student (lol), your post interested me so I looked around a little. I found a link on the website for the International Transplant Nurses' Society that has an archive of their newsletters. This might be some quick info for you to skim over; for instance, the most recent newsletter has an article entitled "What Can Clinical Transplant Nurses Expect from Organs Transplanted After Cardiac Death (DCD) Donors?"

The link to the main website is http://itns.org/

The page that has the newsletter archive is http://itns.org/ITNS_newsletter.php

Best wishes!

[JenniferSews]

I can't speak from a nursing perspective either (sorry!) My husband works in the transplant stream though and I can say you will need flexibility. He has to be on call a certain amount of times a month, and has been right now on since Monday. He started work on Monday at 8:30, then got a donor at 4:10, so he was there until midnight and answered calls at home until 3am. Then at 4am he got a new donor and went back in, came home around 10:30am. He slept for a few hours and has another donor at 8pm. This has been an unusually busy month and he seems to have some weird "luck" for donors. On the other hand he can be on call all weekend sometimes and never get called. If call is part of your responsibilities it might help you to go in with a good plan for what will happen if you get called in at any time. The nurses seem to work longer, since his job is just a portion of the process.

I have learned more about organ donation than ever before and find myself very drawn to it (although I need a lot more experience first.) Sometimes it's very hard to hear the story that goes along with the donor, but you know that so many lives are changed beyond measure and it's very gratifying to be a part of that.