Using Social Media to Find Organ Transplants

I am pleased to post this guest article by Elaine Hirsch.

Patients in need of organ transplants battle their lives day-to-day waiting for a transplant. Unfortunately, the current process for facilitating organ transplants is inefficient and often unfair; patients must be sick enough to qualify for an organ but not so sick that the transplant procedure itself might kill them. With over 100,000 people in the United States waiting for an organ, the risks of dying before organ transplant are all too real. Experts, including PhD program professor and author Steven Levitt have been very vocal about the need for reform in the organ transplant market.Some people waiting for organs have turned to social media to find their own donor rather than sit idle on the United Network for Organ Sharing, better known as UNOS, the national waiting list.
According to UNOS, 6,521 people died in 2010 while waiting for an organ. Some could have been saved if living donors had given bone marrow, a kidney or part of their liver to them. One of the reasons for such a shortage is that some organs, such as hearts and lungs, can't be donated by living donors but must come from cadavers. Recipients who have a family member whose blood type and other criteria matches theirs can bypass the waiting list and undergo a living donor transplant. Those who don't sometimes turn to social media outlets to advertise their needs. This type of appeal to others for donation works best when a child needs an organ, or if the person is well-known in their community (physical or virtual). It's also easier to find someone to donate bone marrow than it is to find someone to donate part of their liver, a far more invasive procedure. Federal laws prohibit the sale of organs, so money is not supposed to change hands in these transactions.

Advertising that you need a kidney on Facebook may seem unusual, but 30- year-old Melissa Foster got 100 people to come forward as potential kidney donors by asking on her Facebook page. While prospective donors still need to undergo a rigorous qualification process, including medical and psychological testing, Foster still may have put herself one giant step closer to receiving a kidney by asking for one on a social network.

Another slightly more conventional way to find a donor when no one in your family qualifies works like a chain reaction. People needing liver transplants who don't have relatives with their blood type find other people waiting for transplant in the same situation. If the donors match, the two families exchange donors. These chains can grow to four or five people, until everyone has a match.

Social media is a way to reach many people with little effort. Many people will donate an organ once they learn of a specific need, particularly if the person is appealing in some way, such as a child. But therein lies the risk and the concern about the ethics of advertising for a donor. What happens to people who are less physically or emotionally appealing? Should organ donation be based on the recipient's ability to market themselves? Ethicists continue to debate these questions, but people waiting for organs don't have time to lose debating.

About the author:
Elaine Hirsch is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and history to medicine and videogames. This makes it difficult to choose just one life path, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites, including onlinephd.org and writing about all these things instead.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today!
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You.

Ethics of an Organ Market

I am pleased to post this guest article by Elaine Hirsch.

Healthy organs are in short supply. For topics taught in phd programs in economics, the price for healthy organs would be dictated by the amount of demand compared to supply. Given the lack of supply, the amount people are willing to pay for healthy organs should skyrocket.

In reality, however, markets for organs are highly inelastic. Government regulations and social pressures prevent organs from being efficiently allocated. Willing patients are held on long transplant lists, while people willing to sell their organs are prohibited by law to do so. With political and social barriers to organ markets being the status-quo, revisiting the ethics behind the ideas of such markets will surely provide insight into a much-needed topic.

The idea of organ markets have been pioneered by academics and economists interested in improving efficiencies within the health care sector. For example, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of the book series Freakonomics, have been vocal about increasing discussion about legalizing organ markets. Noting the ineffective methodology for organ transplants in the United States, the authors believe that “a free market in human organs would save thousands of lives a year”. Interestingly enough, a market for human organs does not necessarily involve the exchange of money; donors can be attracted with incentives such as being fast tracked to the front of the line if they are ever in dire need, increasing the circulation.

Gary Becker, a prominent behavioral psychologist, conducted a study which found that monetary incentives for healthy organs would decrease the long wait times of organ transplant lists without increasing the total costs of surgeries by more than 12%. In the study, Becker notes that greater incentives are needed for individuals to take the risks involved in donating organs.

Proponents of organ markets typically cite utilitarian results behind their reasoning. Incentives would increase the supply of organs, which would lower overall prices of organs, which would therefore save more lives in the long run.

Pessimists, on the other hand, argue that allowing markets dictate the supply of organs will lead to many inequities in the availability of organ transplants. Instead of being merit-based, organs will instead be given to people who can afford transplants and the surgeries that accompany them. For example, a 60 Minutes report highlighted an affluent Japanese businessman who obtained a liver transplant despite being lower on the transplant list than several patients who passed away.

There are obvious inefficiencies with today's transplant system. Many patients wait years for a healthy organs, which are only supplied when a perfect storm of accidents occurs at the expense of another's life or due to the good will of a perfect stranger. A market for transplants, however, allows incentives to skew where organs end up. With advantages and disadvantages that come with both extremes of organ transplants, what you do think is the best way to efficiently manage the market for organs?

About the author:
Elaine Hirsch is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and history to medicine and videogames. This makes it difficult to choose just one life path, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites, including onlinephd.org and writing about all these things instead.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today!
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Record-setting numbers of organ donors sign up in Michigan

I am pleased to publish this guest post by Emily Matthews.
A record-setting 44,101 people signed up to become organ donors in the state of Michigan during the month of August 2011. That was an increase of over 10,000 compared to August 2010. The highest percentage of sign ups, 39%, were in Isabella County. August was the fourth month in row this year to see a double digit increase.

Credit for this significant increase in organ donors goes to Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. You don’t have to be rushing to find a masters degree in public health to know what the secret was to their success: outreach. In April 2011, Johnson initiated the Restart the Heart campaign, which encourages all visitors to a Secretary of State branch to become organ donors. In Michigan, the motor vehicle department, voter registration and election services, licensing for auto mechanics and dealerships and certification for notaries public are all administered by the Secretary of State. All offices that provide these services are Secretary of State branches.

Under the Restart the Heart campaign, posters about joining the registry are on display in Secretary of State branch offices, and employees encourage all customers to become organ donors. Johnson has also pushed for including organ donation reminders on forms such as drivers license applications and voter registration papers, and for the creation of a committee to further promote organ donation. The Secretary of State website includes a link to Michigan’s organ donor registry and frequently asked question regarding organ donation.

The Restart the Heart campaign has received strong public support. A recent poll of readers of the Michigan news website MLive.com showed that 67% had registered as organ donors and another 15% intended to do so. If the site’s readers reflect the makeup of the general population, over 90% of Michigan residents may be registered organ donors by the end of 2011.

Education appears to be a key factor in potential donors’ willingness to register. Many popularly held myths make people unwilling to donate, or lead people to believe they cannot. These myths include being too old or too young, that doctors will make less effort to save the lives of registered organ donors and that it is against religious beliefs.

In reality, age is not a barrier. Even people in their seventies and eighties may successfully donate organs in some cases, and those without viable organs can usually donate tissue. Minors may register as donors with parental consent. Doctors give equal effort to saving patients’ lives whether or not the patient has registered as a donor. Finally, the majority of religions have no prohibition on organ transplants. Part of the effort in Michigan includes debunking these myths.

In Michigan, spreading the word, educating potential donors and making the sign up process a natural part of doing personal business has greatly increased the pool of donors. Each donor reaches an average of eight patients, making the potential lives saved about eight times the number of donors. Similar efforts could save as many lives nationwide and around the world.

About the author:
Emily Matthews is currently applying to masters degree programs across the U.S., and loves to read about new research into health care, gender issues, and literature. She lives and writes in Seattle, Washington.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national 





transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Psychological tips for relaxing pre-transplant patients

Guest post by Allison Gamble

When a loved one is in crisis it can be difficult to find the right things to say or do. As a friend or family member of an impending transplant patient, it is important to remain optimistic and help your loved one relax prior to surgery. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that patients who were optimistic going in to surgery had a faster rate of recovery during their hospitalization, and thankfully, it doesn’t take a psychology degree to learn how to soothe a loved one. While there is no "right" thing to say, by using some psychologically proven tips you can help your loved one, and yourself, get through the experience with a minimum of stress and anxiety.

Relaxation Techniques

Dixie Mills, MD, FACS states that studies have proven deep relaxation prior to surgery can strengthen the immune system, which aids in recovery. Helping your loved one reach a state of deep relaxation can be a powerful boost to their recovery time. There are a variety of relaxation and guided meditation CDs or books that you can purchase to help the person relax prior to transplant surgery. Another important technique is positive visualization. Help your loved one imagine a successful operation and a healthy life post-surgery with a perfectly functioning body. Try deep breathing to calm the jitters both of you will be experiencing.

Act as an Advocate

When a person is extremely ill they are often too frustrated, scared, and anxious to ask the right questions of medical personnel. Be sure your loved one has all of their questions answered by a knowledgeable, caring member of the hospital staff. If need be, enlist the support of a medical social worker. Having the answers and a clear, concise game plan can help alleviate some of the anxiety. Or if possible, connect your loved one with other transplant patients so they know that they are not alone.

Just Be There

While worrying that you'll say the wrong thing or that you aren't doing enough is common, it is often untrue. Sometimes just being there is enough. Your loved one is in a high stress situation prior to transplant surgery. A smile, a warm hand to hold, and reassuring words can work wonders. Help to alleviate their uncertainty. Perhaps bring up a time when your loved one successfully healed from an injury or illness. Let them know fear is natural, but that they are in good hands. Pritchett & Hull Associates, Inc., a publisher of patient-friendly medical literature, suggests reminding your loved one of good times you've had together and the good times you'll have with one another in the future.

Transplant surgery is a difficult time for everyone involved. Helping your loved one relax and enter the operating room with optimism is crucial. By employing these techniques you can not only make the procedure easier, but develop a closer bond with your friend or family member. Letting a pre-transplant patient know that you are there for them unconditionally is perhaps the greatest gift of all.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today!
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Canada Ontario,
Canada - British Columbia, other Canadian provinces

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Travel Nursing and Organ Transplantation: the Potential

I am pleased to post this guest article.

Donor statistics

The surgical replacement of damaged or diseased organs is referred to as an organ transplant with the healthier organ usually being taken from a person shortly after death. It is generally considered to be the last resort for people who are terminally ill based on the failure of a critical organ. Depending on the deceased person’s age and the condition of their organs at the time of their death, the following organs and tissues can be donated:

Here is some further information regarding the different organs mentioned above where transplanting them is concerned:

Heart– even though they beat roughly 2.5 billion times in a person’s lifetime, they will only survive about 4 hours once they are removed from the donor’s body.

Kidneys – a transplanted kidney has an average lifespan of 10 to 15 years. But his is only an average and some live much longer as published in Wikipedia

• Bill Thompson is the longest surviving American kidney recipient. Having received his kidney in 1966 at age 15, it has survived over 40 years .
• Denice Lombard of Washington, D.C., received her father's kidney on August 30, 1967, aged 13 and is still alive and healthy forty years later.
• In Kenya, John Dan of Nairobi is the longest known surviving kidney recipient in East Africa. He received a kidney from his brother in 1984 and is still alive twenty six years later.

Liver – the mortality rate among individuals waiting for a liver transplant is almost 15%.

Lungs – single or double transplants as well as a single lobe can be transplanted although the latter will not regenerate.

Pancreas – portions of the pancreas can be transplanted while the donor retains functionality of the remaining portion of the organ.

Small intestine – although it is rare, portions of the small intestine can be successfully transplanted.

Transplant tourism

Transplant tourism, or more specifically organ transplant tourism is the common terminology that refers those individuals who travel internationally for the sole purpose of having an organ transplant procedure performed. They will typically travel to poor or “3rd world” countries to have the surgery performed. What is so interesting about transplant tourism is that donors in these countries sell organs, such as one of their kidneys, because they are easy to coerce into donating them, poor, or just vulnerable. They are not altruistically motivated to do so.

Organ transplant tourism came about due to a couple of factors. First and foremost, organ transplanting is viewed as being a life-saving maneuver. Secondly, organ transplant tourism became a viable option in order to counteract the shortage of the overall donor organ supply. It is not a fad, nor did the concept arise because it was fashionable. UK Transplant, the NHS website illustrated this fact with the following quote – “Today, more than 9,000 people in the UK need an organ transplant. But less than 3,000 transplants are carried out each year.”

Is there a connection between travel nursing and organ transplants?

The question often arises regarding the possible correlation between travel nursing jobs and organ transplants. Travel nurse jobs have grown in popularity in an effort to counteract the shortage of nurses on a worldwide scale, especially where LPN’s, LVN’s, and RN’s are concerned, as well as other Allied Health professionals.

Additionally, when you take factors such as education, expertise, and patient care into consideration, the transplant nurse has certain skills that other nurses do not possess. So it stands to reason that travel nursing jobs requiring organ transplant knowledge can be available in the more medically advanced countries of the world.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario at Trillium Gift of Life Network NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Janie’s Gift

I'm very pleased to post this guest article by Edward Stern who captures the spirit of organ donation and the profound effect it can have on both donor families and recipients.

Edward Stern is a guest blogger for Pounding the Pavement and a writer on the subject of vocational schools for the Guide to Career Education.

My niece Janie was extremely sharp for a young girl. She excelled in all aspects of school and had many friends. Her personality was simply magnetic, and her friendships seemed to cross the borders of normal cliques. What impressed me the most about her was her giving nature, always willing to help others.

One time when I was with her and my sister (Janie's mother) we were walking downtown and passed a homeless man. I'd given Janie a couple bucks earlier in the day to spend on candy or a little trinket during our shopping adventure. After passing the guy down on his luck, she stopped, turned around, and without hesitation gave him her money. We were all shocked, and the gentleman was very appreciative. When I asked Janie why she did that, she replied, "Because he needed it more than I did. Candy is bad for you anyways."

In a culture so vain and bent on consumerism, Janie was an anomaly, always caring for others and being completely selfless. Tragically, she passed on after a car accident. But before that, she made the decision to be an organ donor.

Her mother told me about that decision, which Janie made after learning of organ donation over the news. I didn't agree with the decision. I thought organ donation was just an unpleasant act. I thought organs should stay put and that we shouldn't go around turning people into Frankenstein creations. I kept my opinions silent from Janie—as I always supported her in all her choices— and after that initial conversation, I never really thought about it. She made the decision when she was 11. Organ donation did not seem to be in her immediate future, certainly not while I was still walking this earth.

The car accident was absolutely devastating. It seemed Janie had been robbed of her life, of so much potential to do good on this earth and make others happy. After the accident, paramedics took her to the hospital. Janie was going to continue to give.

At first, I was truly outraged, but I kept my feelings to myself. I didn't want to upset my sister more during such an awful time. I got word that the hospital was able to salvage Janie’s organs and that they were going to go to some children in need. As it turns out, that was all I needed to hear. I blocked any negative preconceptions from my mind. It wasn't hard to do so, being in mourning for my little niece.

Months went by and wounds continued to heal, though a part of me seemed to be gone forever. Then I received a call from my sister. She was going to get a visit from another little girl. This little girl had been very sick and had received a kidney transplant from Janie. She was going to come visit the family to give her thanks.

I struggled. I didn't know if I should go. I eventually did, to support my sister. It was life changing, and I am so grateful I was able to meet Eva. A beautiful little girl so full of life, she couldn't thank us enough for Janie's gift. No thanks was necessary to us—it was all Janie's
doing.

After losing one life, we gained another, and a whole family to boot. Eva and her family are now close with ours. It has been amazing to watch this little girl grow up, one who would not have had a chance otherwise. I still hurt knowing Janie is not here. But having Eva helps so much. It
made me realize how wrong I was about organ donation, and what a beautiful, amazing, truly life-changing gift it really is.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario at Trillium Gift of Life Network NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Organ Donation and Transplantation

I am pleased to post this guest article by Alex Johnson. Guest posts on subjects dealing with organ and tissue donation and transplantation are always welcome.

By Alex Johnson

Every sixteen minutes, a United States resident is added to the organ transplant waiting list. There are thousands of people waiting to receive organs, but only about 2,000 people each year receive the precious, life-saving organs they need.

Who Needs an Organ Transplant

When organs are failing, a transplant can be considered for an extreme method of treatment. A transplant is usually only used as a last resort and is only considered after all other treatment options have been exhausted. Patients waiting to receive an organ should also be willing to receive a transplant and the procedure must be deemed a necessary and viable option.

Conditions such as heart disease, kidney failure, cirrhosis of the liver, and some lung disorders can possibly be treated through organ transplantation. Some lung issues, such as mesothelioma, a cancer of the lungs caused by asbestos exposure, cannot be treated by organ transplantation.

Generally, donated organs come from a deceased donor who has experienced brain death and is being kept alive by artificial life support systems. When someone experiences a brain death, they have no brain activity; however, their body is still functioning and organs are still healthy. Once a person is deceased, with no blood flowing through the body, the organs are no longer viable and cannot be used for a transplant. The organs of deceased donors are usually used for heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants. Tissues that can be donated include skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves.

Living donors can also be used, but only for certain types of transplants, such as a kidney or liver transplants. This is because people are born with an extra kidney and livers are regenerative. Living donors are typically close friends or family of the organ recipient who are willing to donate and are considered to be a donor match.

The Nationwide Organ Distribution Process

People who need to receive an organ transplant from a deceased donor must be registered by their physician to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). The OPTN is operated by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). UNOS maintains a database of people who are waiting for an organ transplant. The organization establishes and maintains the procedures for deciding the criteria people must meet in order to receive a transplant. The board, comprised of transplant physicians, transplant patients, and organ donors, decides who will receive an organ.

Unfortunately, the demand for organs is much greater than the actual supply. Many people are registered with OPTN and UNOS for months, even years, before a suitable transplant becomes available. For many, this will never take place.

How to Become an Organ Donor

If people would like to donate their organs when they die, they should inform their families of their wishes. The family of the donor makes the final decision as to whether organs should be donated, so it is important to make your wishes known, before it is too late. In most states, you can choose the Organ Donor designation for placement on your Driver’s License. Check with your state for the rules.

Organ donation organizations are widely available and can be contacted if there are any questions or concerns about becoming an organ donor.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario at Trillium Gift of Life Network NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Revolutionizing Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation

I am pleased to publish this guest post by Susan White.

Organ donation has helped save hundreds of thousands of lives; come to think of it, it’s a sort of irony when you consider that when one life is lost, many others could potentially be saved because their organs and tissue can be harvested and transplanted into the bodies of people who would otherwise die. The biggest problem with achieving success in organ donation is that it is very difficult to preserve the organ and keep it “alive” until it can be transplanted into the recipient’s body. Earlier, all organs were harvested from non-heart beating donors. But a few decades ago, it was found that donors who were brain-stem dead provided the best organs because they had oxygenated blood which protected them until they could be cooled.

Now however, another breakthrough in this discipline has ensured that more lives can be saved – scientists at the Sunderland University have been instrumental in pioneering a procedure that allows doctors to cool organs so that they can be preserved for patients waiting for a transplant. This procedure will hopefully reduce the large gap between the demand for and the supply of organs in the donor pool because it allows organs from non-heart beating (NHB) donors to be harvested and successfully transplanted into those who need them. Before the advent of this technique, it was almost impossible to find organs from NHB donors because they (the organs) which are starved of oxygen may be damaged and so, unsuitable for transplantation.

However, the research that is currently being undertaken at the Sunderland University shows that when organs from NHB donors are cooled rapidly, the damage is minimized and the organs are preserved in good condition, allowing them to be transplanted into patients with a reasonable chance of success. Based on this, new medical devices are being developed to cool the organs rapidly. They minimize damage to the tissue and help regenerate it until the organ can start working again and be transplanted into the recipient. Also, various teams are collaborating on finding the right anti-inflammatory drug to assist the cooling of the organ.

This finding will no doubt revolutionize organ donation and transplantation; with more donor organs being made viable for transplant, more lives can be saved.

By-line:

This article is contributed by Susan White, who regularly writes on the subject of surgical technician schools. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: susan.white33@gmail.com

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

The Importance of Organ Donation

by Sarah Scrafford

It’s a sad but true fact of life – we don’t value our health as long as we’re healthy; it’s only when we lose it that we realize what a treasure we’ve lost, and then it’s a case of crying over spilt milk. Our organs are precious, and when any one fails to perform what it’s meant to do, we’re almost at death’s door. Man and medicine have combined to make transplants possible, the procedure by which organs from dead or almost dead people are used to give new life to those who need it.

Millions of people are on organ transplant wait lists, and there are many others who lie in a coma or are brain dead and have organs that are ready and healthy for donation. As of April 2008, there are almost 100,000 people on the waiting list, with 106 being added every day, and 18 dying each day for lack of a donor. I was witness to a heartening incident recently – a friend’s son suffered a head injury in a road accident, and the doctors pronounced that there was nothing they could do for him.

Rather than sit and cry over their son’s condition, rather than keep him hooked onto machines for an indefinite period of time during which he would literally be a vegetable, the parents chose to donate all his organs, and 8 people lived through their boy. That’s a whole lot of emotions to contend with – sadness that their son is no longer alive mixed with the feel-good factor that comes with giving a new lease of life to 8 different people.

One aspect of organ donation that remains under a cloud is the use of money to induce people to donate – this has come under fire because it could tempt people who are poor and healthy to donate organs like kidneys which we need only one of to survive. And then there’s the greater danger of the organ black market where crooks harvest organs and sell them for exorbitant rates.

There’s no doubting that more and more people are going to join that already-long waiting list, and if we are to prevent unnecessary deaths, more of us have to create awareness about organ donation and sign on to donate our organs when we’re dead and gone.

By-line:

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of EKG Certification. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Sign Your Donor Card & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network
For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants. One tissue donor can help up to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves