further details on how not to procure organs

The LA Times has a follow-up on the organ procurement/transplant case that Ina's Sporula mentioned a few days back. Some intrepid soul at the paper decided to request the originally referred to report via the Freedom of Information Act, and received a 76-page document from federal investigators that reads like a litany of 101 things to not do when procuring organs for transplant.

As more comes out about this case, it's likely that the transplant surgeon will be the one made an example of, the over-zealous doctor that pushed too far. It is, after all, a nightmare scenario I hear repeated as the basis for why so many people are not organ donors, even though they would want an organ transplant themselves if it were necessary. But what is so interesting, in a "if you can't be a good example you'll be a horrible warning" sort of way, is reading the summary of the full report in the LA Times and realizing how many medical personnel (nurses and doctors) were present in the room, uncomfortable with what was going on, and said nothing until days, days, later. This seems a much more systemic problem than one over-zealous surgeon, to something endemic within the culture of the hospital itself.
-Kelly Hills

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.