I've been a critical care nurse for 6 years, I'm employed at a Southern California hospital that mandates all nurses taking care of poor prognosis patients to report them to one organ donation company. If a nurse fails to comply or report it to that "none profit" organization, even if the family does not want to donate organs, we are written up. Essentially, we are forced to call them regardless and this organization sends a nurse to persuade the next of kin in their vulnerable state. I mean within hours of being declared brain dead.
If the deceased did not make their wishes known about organ donation, nurses should not force another third party to come in and try to sales pitch them. I asked one of the family's what they said, and they said all the good things that come from it, i.e. a tragedy. I think the organ donation organization plays on their vulnerability.
I've done research on this particular organ donation company and the CEO makes well above $500,000. I've seen invoices from other hospitals the amount of money that goes into harvesting an organ and clearly have been disenchanted by the thought of donation. Additionally, this organization threw a thank you party for our unit because we had 6 organ "harvesting" in a month.
I feel there are HIPAA violations of reporting something to a third party without the family's knowledge and mandating it by the hospital. Note, we do not get permission from the family to divulging information about the decease.
Sadly, I have personal experience with organ donation from the donor's side. My beautiful, precious 5-year-old son passed away six years ago in a drowning accident. We have nothing but good things to say about the wonderful, compassionate, empathetic people who worked for the donation organization. My family and I were in a horrible situation and trying to find some way not to allow our son's death to be in vain. Given the choice, we would never have put ourselves in such a position. That these people chose this as their life's work amazes me. I'm communicating all of this in order to qualify my next statement. The idea of a party for six "harvested" organs is outragous to me. Such an act debases the memory of my son and the spirit in which we chose to carry on his legacy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the practices of the pharma companies, but I (maybe naively) thought that organ donation was sacred and not something to be celebrated with a few pizzas and some cupcakes. I'm just starting nursing school, but I don't know how I would react to a similar situation. Can anyone else tell me if this is common?
Some states you have to notify Organ donation organization if death is eminent or if brain death has occurred. I have only had positive interactions with organ procurement. Having a third party actually removes the hospital from the decision making. There may be answers that the family tells the Organ donation person that let's them know the family may still be deciding. Maybe a family has told the rep to come back, or to say they haven't fully decided. Sometimes we only see one side of the interaction.
Sadly, I have personal experience with organ donation from the donor's side. My beautiful, precious 5-year-old son passed away six years ago in a drowning accident. We have nothing but good things to say about the wonderful, compassionate, empathetic people who worked for the donation organization. My family and I were in a horrible situation and trying to find some way not to allow our son's death to be in vain. Given the choice, we would never have put ourselves in such a position. That these people chose this as their life's work amazes me. I'm communicating all of this in order to qualify my next statement. The idea of a party for six "harvested" organs is outragous to me. Such an act debases the memory of my son and the spirit in which we chose to carry on his legacy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the practices of the pharma companies, but I (maybe naively) thought that organ donation was sacred and not something to be celebrated with a few pizzas and some cupcakes. I'm just starting nursing school, but I don't know how I would react to a similar situation. Can anyone else tell me if this is common?
I'm an ICU nurse, and when we have a donor on the unit our state's organ donation organization will buy all of the staff a meal for each shift (i.e. lunch for dayshift or dinner for nightshift), but it's NOT a party. They do it because having a patient who will be a donor on the floor takes a tremendous amount of work. There are very frequent labs, diagnostic tests, emergent consults, multiple medications, etc. They will buy us lunch as a thank you for putting in so much work and helping to make donation possible (and also because nearly 100% of the time the primary nurse working with the patient doesn't have time to take any breaks to eat otherwise). They will feed us regardless, even if it's only one organ that ends up being suitable for transplant, or even if in the end the patient is determined to not be a suitable donor at all. Don't think of it as a reward, and no matter what you do don't let it take away from your opinion of the process. It was a very brave thing that you did allowing your son's legacy to contribute to the lives of others, and I bet you have multiple families who secretly thank you every day for your decision to donate, and allowing their loved ones to stay with them.
People were passively questioning my intelligence throughout the thread. i.e. But surely you know that if you've been an ICU nurse for six years?" and "You were misinformed."
It's possible to be intelligent yet misinformed about a given subject. I consider myself to be fairly intelligent; doesn't mean I could never be wrong or that I know everything.
It's possible to be intelligent yet misinformed about a given subject. I consider myself to be fairly intelligent; doesn't mean I could never be wrong or that I know everything.
It's not misinformed if I'm the one that witnessed it. "surely you know that if you've been an ICU nurse" That's was another example. Again, this has nothing to do with with the main topic. But, we can continue talking about it, if you like.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the practices of the pharma companies, but I (maybe naively) thought that organ donation was sacred and not something to be celebrated with a few pizzas and some cupcakes. I'm just starting nursing school, but I don't know how I would react to a similar situation. Can anyone else tell me if this is common?
In my experience, it was never a celebration, more of a "Thank GOD at least something good came of this tragedy." The whole process was somber, yet determined, because the staff wants those organs to be in good shape for the recipient, lest the patient's death be that much more tragic.
Specializes in Adult and Pediatric Vascular Access, Paramedic.
I am guessing you would feeldrastically different if you or a family member needed a new organ to survive.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, this needs to happen, otherwise there would be many less organs to be donated and more people dying waiting.
Think about the family on the receiving end and the patient that NEEDS the organ. Do you want to call them and say "I felt it was unethical to talk to Mr. Smith's family about donating his organs. Sorry, I just couldn't do it. So Mr. Smith's organs are getting buried/cremated instead being donated so you can live". Which conversation do you think is more unethical? The example I just gave, or the one where the trained organ procurement staff go talk with the family, in a respectful manner about donation? Which one is more productive?
Forget about the financial for the most part, but do understand no one can work for free so the organ procurement agency HAS to charge money! Look at "charities" like March of Dimes and look at what that CEO makes before you start complaining.
I have also read many stories about organ donation giving some families some form of purpose when a person dies unexpectedly.
We have to be really careful of public perception of what goes on behind the scenes in medicine.
We are known amongst ourselves to have "black humor" to facilitate mental health in trying situations. But we never let the public in on that because it can be quite hurtful.
dbabz - my heart skipped a few beats when I read your post. You and your family did a very brave thing and if you were here, I'd ask if I could give you a hug and hang on for a bit.
This might be a good thing to keep in mind during nursing classes in case anything comes up about how medical folks deal with tragedy.
One of the questions my instructors asked us on the first day was to go home that night and think about our biases and then come back the next day and share them. No judgment was given about our biases but we had a meaningful presentation about recognizing our biases so when we care for patients, those biases do not lead us to make mistakes in how we treat them.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
We have a hopsice IDT today and are going to discuss this. The rep from the donor network told me that IF I had advanced directives with the box checked AGAINST being an organ donor, then all would be well. But the advanced directives did not have that box checked so they were going to call the legal rep of family even though the family said no. I think we'd like to start addressing this fairly soon after admit to hospice with our patients and family members. So we have a firm yes or no decided way ahead of time.
It was explained to me by the donor network rep I was talking to at 0145 a.m. a few nights ago that they started training people specifically to deal with families of dying or dead patients regarding encouraging donation. And that I was not supposed to tell the family that there would be someone calling in an hour. And I was not supposed to talk about donation to the family because I didn't have that "special" training. Sounded like subterfuge to me.
I am guessing you would feeldrastically different if you or a family member needed a new organ to survive.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, this needs to happen, otherwise there would be many less organs to be donated and more people dying waiting.
Think about the family on the receiving end and the patient that NEEDS the organ. Do you want to call them and say "I felt it was unethical to talk to Mr. Smith's family about donating his organs. Sorry, I just couldn't do it. So Mr. Smith's organs are getting buried/cremated instead being donated so you can live". Which conversation do you think is more unethical? The example I just gave, or the one where the trained organ procurement staff go talk with the family, in a respectful manner about donation? Which one is more productive?
Annie
Hi Annie - my take on this thread and the OP's initial comment was not that she was against donation or having the donor organization call with specially trained people to talk to the families.
dbabz
157 Posts
Sadly, I have personal experience with organ donation from the donor's side. My beautiful, precious 5-year-old son passed away six years ago in a drowning accident. We have nothing but good things to say about the wonderful, compassionate, empathetic people who worked for the donation organization. My family and I were in a horrible situation and trying to find some way not to allow our son's death to be in vain. Given the choice, we would never have put ourselves in such a position. That these people chose this as their life's work amazes me. I'm communicating all of this in order to qualify my next statement. The idea of a party for six "harvested" organs is outragous to me. Such an act debases the memory of my son and the spirit in which we chose to carry on his legacy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the practices of the pharma companies, but I (maybe naively) thought that organ donation was sacred and not something to be celebrated with a few pizzas and some cupcakes. I'm just starting nursing school, but I don't know how I would react to a similar situation. Can anyone else tell me if this is common?