Learning about organ donations
From The Rogers Hometown News in Arkansas:
A Future Business Leaders of American service project at Rogers High School may result in some unusual dinner table conversations. Hundreds of high school students were encouraged to talk to their families about organ donations by guest speaker Keith Maddison, an education specialist for ARORA (Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency ).
Student Necole Kerstiens heard Maddison speak at the state FBLA conference and knew her classmates would be interested in the presentation. She invited him to the school and, along with Sarah Eoff, spent part of Friday helping with the video equipment. More than 600 students heard the presentation.
Maddison traveled from his Little Rock office to talk to the students. He speaks to many groups across the state to encourage people to think about organ donation.
But he begins his presentations to students by assuring them that he's not recruiting. He warned his audience to wear their seatbelts and helmets.
Useful organs come from people who are brain dead, he explained. After an injury to the brain, a person may be kept on a ventilator and their organs recovered. A person who experiences cardiac death - whose heart stops beating - can be a tissue donor. Read the full article,
Donation a moral imperative, says rabbi
From The Ottawa Citizen (Canada):
The reluctance of some people to agree to organ donation is sometimes simply squeamishness. But often it stems from a concern that taking an organ from a body violates the obligation to bury the body whole.
Rabbi Reuven Bulka, who has worked for years as an advocate for organ donation and was recently named chairman of the board of the Trillium Gift of Life Network, says people oppose organ donation, even within the Jewish faith. But he says they haven't thought the issue through.
"Many lay people say, 'We've grown up with the idea that when you are buried, you have to be buried whole.'
"So I say, 'Didn't you also grow up with the idea that saving life is the all-encompassing and overarching Jewish value that supplants every other value? Are you telling me that the obligation to bury a person whole is so sacred that it trumps saving a life?'"
Rabbi Bulka says that the obligation of burying the body with all its parts was valid before the 20th century. But it was trumped by modern medicine and the obligation to save life, and not idly stand by while the blood of your neighbour is being spilled. Read the complete article.
Perry County Boy Receives Lung Transplant
From KATV in Missouri:
A Perry County boy has received the lungs he desperately needs to stay alive.
It's a story we have been following for more than two years. After waiting ten months, Job McCully finally received a lung transplant Tuesday. The surgery wrapped up late Tuesday afternoon, and doctors say the procedure went well.
Three months ago, doctors told Job’s family he likely only had two days to live. He beat those odds, but was in dire need of a lung transplant.
At 6:00 a.m. Tuesday, his mother, asleep by Job’s bedside at St. Louis Children's Hospital awoke to a phone call. A pair of lungs was available, and surgery would begin in just hours. Read the story.
New Device Developed For Lung Damage Sufferers
From WJZ.com in Baltimore, Maryland:
A world record set at a Maryland hospital encourages the improvement of a life saving device.
Healthwatch reporter Kellye Lynn reports on a lab at the University of Maryland Medical Center where doctors are developing a small lung assist device that could drastically improve the quality of life for patients with severe lung damage.
Delicate baby steps have to be taken, after a herculean effort. A 24-year-old Maryland man is the world's longest survivor on the lung assist device.
Tim McClellan's lungs stopped functioning after a severe head injury.
"What this machine did was connect to two major blood vessels and circulated the blood out into a machine, put oxygen in it and fed it back to his body," said Michelle McClellan, Tim's mom.
It's a device that sustained Tim for 107 days, until he received a lung transplant. Read the full article.
“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Sign Your Donor Card & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”
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