Sporula on Organ Donation
Ina's blog comments on a case of transplantation:Well, I used to make up a case like this one about Kaiser transplant surgeons to get students to think carefully about the consequences of various facets of our organ donation system and alternatives (e.g. paying donors, etc). People (see for example Art Caplan’s position have often suggested that our current system (donation rather than payment) would prevent people from pushing friends/relatives/patients over the “brain-dead” boundary, but I’ve never been convinced, and now, here’s potential proof.
I have to say that I always assumed these cases would be found in developing countries and specifically that subset of developing countries where medicine isn’t well-regulated. It just goes to show you huh? (Insert Annie Oakley singing “anything you can do I can do bettttteeeeerrrrrr!”). Of course, I don’t want to prejudge this particular doc, but I have to say I doubt that this is the first time a U.S. transplant surgeon’s pushed things a little - just the first time that someone might have gotten caught…
For more of Ina's Sporula, whatever that is Ina, because it is interesting stuff, go here.
Labels: Sporula, transplantation
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On the contrary I think if you have markets you will get much more of this behavior violating the dead donor rule. Add incentives and people wont be as worried about whether uncle Fred is really truly dead before removing organs.
- by Art Caplan on Mar 1, 2007 at 12:36 AM | link
A visit to the e.r. could compromise care in saving those who present with life threating injuries sustained in an accident. Do we save John Doe or should we harvest his organs?
Simplistic, yes. But food for thought. Dead donor rules are there for a reason.
- by lisa powers on Mar 2, 2007 at 1:07 PM | link
I just don't get this. Massive doses of Morphine & Ativan given BEFORE extubation - how humane! But, it seems like once labeled a DONOR, the pt. ceased to be a human and more drugs were needed to perpetuate the cause. I am for organ transplantation. I am a nurse. I will never be a donor. I have seen too many situations handled badly by transplant teams. (Nothing this bad!) Imagine how I felt when my sister was told over the phone (her 51 year old husband 2 days deceased, a tissue donor) that his heart was in Atlanta and "of course" it would not be buried with him in Pittsburgh. (Heart valves are tissues.) This is fact, but did they have to tell her that on the day before the funeral? Did they have to offer that at all? There would be fewer donors if the general public knew what was involved. These are the reasons I am not a donor. I don't care what they do with my body when I pass, but I will not put my family through it. And, no, I don't feel I deserve an organ if I am not willing to donate one.
- by Holly James on Mar 19, 2007 at 11:19 PM | link