17-year-old girl goes to prom following lung transplant

Maryland Doctors Save West Virginia Teen’s Life 

Reporting: Mike Schuh, WJZ, BALTIMORE – A teenager from a high school in West Virginia will be able to go to her senior prom, thanks to doctors in Maryland.

As Mike Schuh explains, she’s lucky to be alive after her local doctors had given up hope.

At age 12, Victoria ‘Torry’ Chakwin knew something was wrong. She couldn’t breathe, tired easily and ran out of energy. Her mother took her to doctors all over the country looking for an answer.

It turns out she was developing idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that can be seen in people of any age, but is more common in those who are 70+ and smoke. For reasons the medical community does not completely understand, her lungs became filled with fibrous masses, retained fluids and lost their ability to process oxygen.

Now 18 years old, one of her doctors said the inside of her lungs were like leather. Late last year and into 2012, as her condition deteriorated, her doctors in Martinsburg, W. Va., began asking transplant centers if she would be a good candidate for a lung transplant. All of the centers declined, saying she was too sick and a transplant was too risky.

WJZ has learned that those centers were looking out not only for their prospective patients, but for the center as well. According to transplant surgeons, a national organization responsible for allotting donated organs keeps statistics on the success or failure of all transplant centers. If the failure rate falls below average, they will be placed on a form of probation and could see the number of organs allotted to them decrease or cease.

When Chakwin’s doctor called the University of Maryland’s Lung Transplant Center in downtown Baltimore, medical director Dr. Aldo Iacono thought they could help the high school senior. Lung transplant surgeon Dr. Bartley Griffith told WJZ that the UM Lung Transplant Center has had a string of 25 successful transplants. Because of their excellent record, they were in a position to accept a high-risk patient like Chakwin.

When brought here in January, Chakwin said she was very worried that she’d die. She was placed on a special machine which directly oxygenates the blood. While the use of that machine extends a patient’s life, it also lowers the chances of a successful transplant. Because a patient needs to be put into a mild coma while the machine is connected, the muscles a patient needs to breathe on their own atrophy. Though Chakwin spent two weeks on the machine, and though her diseased lungs had shrunk to the size of teacups, the transplant team reported no problems they couldn’t overcome and her transplant was a success.

On Thursday, Chakwin and her mother returned to the Intensive Care Unit at the University of Maryland in downtown Baltimore. She thanked her transplant team and the many nurses who cared for her during her two-month stay.

“The storybook ending we all hope for doesn’t always happen. It did today, and it’s what we live for and that’s why we have a celebration tour of the ICU,” Griffith said.

Meanwhile, Chakwin showed pictures of her prom dress to nurses, doctors and reporters. Because she has been so ill, she’s missed out on most of the dances and gatherings teens enjoy during high school. She is excited not only that she is alive, but come Saturday, she’ll be going to her first ever high school dance.

Chakwin says she’s going to take a year off to regain her strength and live life before going to college.

“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, donatelife.net

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.

Kidney Transplanted Twice in Two Weeks

Transplant recipient donates kidney after disease threatens the organ; re-implantation reverses damage and allows another patient to thrive

Press release -  Northwestern Memorial News

April 25, 2012 - For the first time, a kidney that had been donated to a patient in need was removed and implanted into a new patient, the third individual to have the organ, after it failed in the first transplant recipient. Ray Fearing, a 27-year-old Arlington Heights resident received the organ from his sister, Cera, after a long battle with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a disease in which scar tissue develops on the part of the kidney that filters waste out of the blood, ultimately causing kidney failure. When signs of his illness reoccurred just days after he received the organ and posed life-threatening symptoms, doctors informed Fearing that they would have no choice but to remove the failing kidney. They also informed Fearing that he could potentially save someone else’s life by donating the organ and allowing doctors to re-implant it into another patient in need of transplant, something that had never successfully been done before with a kidney.

“In over 50 percent of cases, transplant does not stop the process of FSGS. When post surgery tests indicated that Ray was at risk of developing life-threatening conditions due to the reoccurrence of the disease, we had to remove the kidney before he deteriorated. The kidney however was still a relatively healthy, viable organ that could be transplanted into someone else without FSGS,” explained Lorenzo Gallon, MD, transplant nephrologist and medical director of the kidney transplant program Northwestern Memorial Hospital and associate professor of medicine and surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Northwestern Medicine® experts and members of the medical ethics committee reviewed the proposed procedure and evaluated the decision prior to re-implanting the organ. The group discussed potential risks, which included the possibility that the kidney would fail to recover from its current level of minor damage due to its short exposure to FSGS while implanted in Fearing, thus failing to function properly in a new patient.

“After numerous discussions to carefully consider this first-ever procedure, we presented Ray with the option to donate his kidney to someone on the national kidney waiting list rather than discarding it,” said Gallon.

Fearing did not hesitate when he found out he could help someone in need like himself. Two weeks after receiving his kidney transplant, he donated his kidney to 67-year-old surgeon and father of five, Erwin Gomez.

The organ regained function almost immediately after re-transplantation and just eight days after transplantation, tests showed a reversal of the damage caused by the FSGS in Fearing’s body.

“This is a ground-breaking medical moment because it suggests that it is possible to reverse the damage done to a kidney as a result of FSGS after it is re-transplanted into a body with a healthy circulatory system,” said Joseph Leventhal, MD, PhD, transplant surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and associate professor of surgery and director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Not only did we save a viable organ from being discarded, we also made significant strides in better understanding the cause of FSGS, which has been relatively unknown, so we can better treat the disease in the future. This proves that when an organ fails in one body, it may thrive in another.”

This innovative idea and resulting discovery is featured in the April 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Fearing is back on dialysis to control his FSGS and is hopeful he will receive another kidney transplant in the future.

“It may not have been my time, but I am grateful that I was able to help another patient,” said Fearing. “My day will come.”

Northwestern Medicine is the shared vision that joins Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in a collaborative effort to transform medicine through quality healthcare, academic excellence and scientific discovery. 

“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, donatelife.net

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.

Hélène Campbell's campaign cited in obit as inspiration for giving

By Barbara Turnbull Life Reporter The Toronto Star

Hélène Campbell is making such great progress after her double lung transplant on April 6, and has even been seen dancing to Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend," says her mother, Manon Campbell.

ALUNGSTORY.COM

As Hélène Campbell continues to make remarkable progress from her recent double lung transplant, the organ donation crusader’s pleas for people to save others is being heard loud and clear.

At a press conference Tuesday at Toronto General Hospital, where the 21-year-old Ottawa woman is recovering, her father read from an obituary from 10 days ago.

“Terry’s wish to donate his organs was inspired by @alungstory Helene’s organ donation campaign,” the death notice read.

“Wow,” said a visibly moved Alan Campbell. “An immediate impact.”

He went on to thank his daughter’s donor, whose identity is unknown to the Campbells but hopes the family’s “message of deep and abiding appreciation will reach them, even as they grieve the loss of their loved one.”

“My daughter has life because of that gift,” he said.

Hélène Campbell drew attention to the issue of organ and tissue donation when she was placed on the transplant list in January. She’d been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in October, a disease that can only be treated with a transplant.

With compelling video appeals and a Twitter campaign (@alungstory), she gained celebrity support from Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres and others. Before her transplant, Campbell was also Skyping into stops along a province-wide awareness campaign, torchoflife.com, a 75-day, 110-stop journey aiming to register 1 million new donors in Ontario.

Hélène had a life-saving lung transplant on April 6, and is making excellent progress, said transplant surgeons Dr. Shaf Keshavjee and Dr. Tom Waddell. She is dancing during physio, breathing more on her own and could be discharged from hospital within two weeks.

“She’s beginning to dance already to music and does the treadmill to music,” her mother, Manon, said. “The first song this morning was Justin Bieber’s (If I Were Your) “Boyfriend,” so you can imagine the arms going up.”

Waddell, lead surgeon during the seven-hour procedure, says Campbell passed the first night without help from the ventilator. “This is definitely a major milestone moving forward,” he says. “She will soon be able to completely breathe on her own.”

Since the transplant, there have been good days and bad, Hélène’s mother notes. Communication remains a challenge, as the tracheotomy performed last week (a hole surgically made in Campbell’s throat for the ventilator) prevents her voice from being heard.

Her team expects she will be moved from the Intensive Care Unit to a step-down unit within two days. And she could leave the hospital in as little as two weeks, Waddell says. But Hélène will likely have to stay in Toronto for a few weeks.

“What makes her happiest is when she hears the positive stories of how this message is going across,” Manon Campbell says, referring to the thousands who have been registering with the province’s beadonor.ca site.

Keshavjee, director of the lung transplant programs at the United Health Network and the Hospital for Sick Children, hailed Campbell’s transplant as one of the more courageous procedures — even though they perform this type of surgery 10 times a month.

Typically a recipient is matched with a donor through blood type and body size, but because Hélène, a very small size, was going downhill so quickly, they used the lungs of a larger donor, Waddell says.

“We chose to use a bigger donor because we didn’t feel Hélène had much time left to wait for somebody more like her own size,” he says. Instead of transplanting the entire lungs, which is normally done, they used the left upper lobe and the right lower and middle lobes.

“From a technical, surgical point of view, that would add complexity,” he says.

Campbell’s motivation, with the excellent physiotherapy, is one of the major keys to her success.

“Almost from the first day she was getting exercise,” Waddell says. “On subsequent days, even while on a respirator, she was walking on a treadmill. I think that’s a critical component to people not only returning to healthy, functioning lungs but to a quality of life.”

When asked if her daughter has message, Manon said simply: “Beadonor.ca.”

“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, donatelife.net

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.

Organ donations up thanks to 'Hélène Campbell effect'

Hélène Campbell received a double lung transplant on Friday, April 6, 2012.

BY MIKE AUBRY OTTAWA SUN

 Registrations for organ donations in Ottawa have skyrocketed by more than 8,000 since December, and the Trillium Gift of Life Network(TGLN) attributes it to the " Hélène  Campbell effect."

 "People are inspired when they can relate to the individual who is talking to them," said TGLN president and CEO Ronnie Gavsie. 

 "It becomes a personal ask and this is  Hélène's personal ask and Ottawa has responded." 

 Campbell is the 21-year-old Barrhaven woman who raised awareness for organ donations across the world while she battled a degenerative lung disease. 

 She received a double lung transplant in a Toronto hospital on April 6 after her campaign caught the attention of celebrities including Ellen Degeneres and pop sensation Justin Bieber through her Twitter account @alungstory. 

 Registration numbers jumped by 2% since Campbell launched her public crusade, and Gavsie said that's significant because it takes 115,000 registration to move the dial one percentage point. 

 April is National Organ and Tissue Awareness month, and to increase that personal connection with donors, the TGLN has launched the Gift of 8 Movement. 

 It's a quasi-social network service where people can make profile pages to share their stories and inspire their friends to register to donate their organs and tissues. 

 Log on to beadonor.ca to join the network. 

 "When you have a page, it becomes a personal ask, and you're asking your friends and your colleagues and your neighbours to register consent," said Gavsie. 

 The site lets you choose a default message or you can write your own, and you can even set a goal for how many registrations you'd like to have come through your page. 

 When it comes registering donors, small communities in Ontario are way ahead of their urban peers. 

Donor registrations in Northern Ontario are the highest, ranging between 30 and 49%, while dense urban populations in the Greater Toronto area are stagnant, from less than 10% in Scarborough and Vaughan to less than 19% in the rest of Toronto. 

Gavsie said it's because there's greater community engagement in rural towns.

"In the North, we see smaller, very close-knit communities and cohesive neighborhoods where if one person is touched by the need for a transplant many people in the community know about it an they rally," she said.

The TGLN hopes the Gift of 8 Movement will broaden the scope of registrations.

Gavsie would love to see an Ottawa Senator's (ice hockey) team page with each of their stories about organ transplants that have touched them,

Ontario residents can see how their community compares at the following link https://beadonor.ca/communities

“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, donatelife.net

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.

Today I celebrate 10 years with my new lung

Today I celebrate the 10th anniversary of my lung transplant and I'm in a lot better shape today than I was following my surgery on April 20, 2002 as you can see in the photo. 

I want to thank the medical and support staff at Toronto General Hospital for the wonderful care I received and continue to receive. TGH is one of the world's leading lung transplant centers, performing more than 100 transplants annually.

I also want to thank my donor and donor family for making the courageous decision to donate their loved one's lung in order for me to have a second chance at life. I wrote them a letter but never received a reply. If I ever have a chance to meet them I would first of all tell them how grateful and thankful I am and I would also tell them that their loved one did not die in vain because he or she is still living within me and we both are continuing on the road of life together.  

“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, donatelife.net

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.

Double lung transplant recipient Hélène Campbell suffers setback

When I was recovering from my lung transplant due to pulmonary fibrosis (the same disease as Hélène Campbell) I experienced the same "setbacks" she's going through. Breathing tubes, lung infection, etc. but the medical team at Toronto General Hospital was right on top of it and pulled me through wonderfully and I've no doubt they will do the same for her.

Hélène Campbell received a double lung transplant on Friday, April 6, 2012. CTV News

Hélène Campbell, a Canadian double lung transplant recipient and online organ donation crusader, suffered a setback in her recovery, her mother said on her daughter's 21st birthday.

In an update Wednesday, Manon Campbell said Hélène was again hooked to a ventilator Sunday in Toronto General Hospital after she experienced trouble breathing.

Manon Campbell said in a post on her daughter's A Lung Story website that doctors decided to perform a tracheostomy — an opening in the neck — to facilitate chest physiotherapy, deep breathing, coughing and suctioning.

She also said her daughter is taking antibiotics for a lung infection and is being treated with extra doses of steroids for an early onset of organ rejection, which she said is not uncommon for transplant patients.

This comes after a week Campbell's family described as a "roller-coaster ride."

Campbell continues 'to be positive'

On Saturday, Campbell took to Twitter to announce she is breathing on her own for the first time after her double-lung transplant on April 6.

"Despite the medical ups and down, Hélène continues to participate very actively in her care," wrote Manon Campbell.

"We witnessed some of her first dance moves, bobbing her head and shoulders to the tune of Walking on Broken Glass by Annie Lennox today. She daily displays persistence, patience and perseverance continuing to be positive. She even perceives the tracheostomy as a welcomed birthday present as she celebrates her twenty first birthday today."

Campbell achieved fame using her Twitter account @alungstory to raise awareness about organ donation. Her campaign caught the attention of celebrities including teen pop star Justin Bieber and U.S. talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, who had Campbell on her show via Skype in February to discuss organ donation.

Campbell's Twitter account now has more than 13,000 followers.

Campbell had been waiting for the transplant surgery since last July, when she discovered she had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a degenerative lung disease, after collapsing on a hiking trail.

She moved in January from the Ottawa neighbourhood of Barrhaven to Toronto with her mother while her father and three siblings remained in the Ottawa area.

“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, donatelife.net

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.

Woman's treatment while on liver transplant list was tragic, inquest told

20 to 30 percent of patients on the wait list for an organ transplant die before a donor is found for their second chance at life. However, in this case it would seem that the patient's death was the result of human errors at the hospital.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
A Sydney mother was discharged from hospital after falling victim to a "comedy of errors" that ended in her death from multi-organ failure, an inquest has been told.

Marie Haywood, 43, was admitted to Campbelltown Hospital on December 21 when she had fluid drained from her abdomen due to a chronic liver condition.

Mrs Haywood, who had been on the liver transplant list since August of that year, was also diagnosed with pneumonia and given increasing levels of morphine and other pain medication, a coronial inquest heard on Monday.

By Christmas Day she told nurses that she was "always in pain", counsel assisting the coroner Kristina Stern told Glebe Coroner's Court.

On Boxing Day, when she was discharged, Mrs Haywood reportedly complained of chest pain and having a red, pussy wound where a cannular had been inserted.

She had also vomited and was having trouble walking.

On the same day, blood test results showed a clear deterioration in her renal function.

"It appears that no one actually checked those results ... and they were not taken into account," Ms Stern said in her opening address.

"The only doctor that had physical contact with her was an intern who had no experience of her case."

She was discharged despite test results showing that her "overall condition had clearly deteriorated during her admission", Ms Stern added.

Mrs Haywood wasn't given a discharge summary or plan, and the doctor who signed off on her discharge did not physically review her.

Her condition worsened and she returned to hospital with her husband 16 hours later.

When she died on December 29 her primary cause of death was listed as multi-organ failure.

In a report read to the inquest, Professor David Morris described Mrs Haywood's time in hospital from December 21 to 26 as a "comedy of errors" that ended in her "spiralling into multi-organ failure".

He said the lack of co-ordination and communication between medical staff was "tragic", and the managing of her urine was "seriously inadequate".

Speaking outside the inquest, her husband John Haywood said he hoped the coronial investigation would result in improvements to the way hospitals are run.

"I would like to come out at the end and see that people can't be discharged without being seen," he told reporters.

"I always believed that when you went to hospital, you went there and you would be okay, but it doesn't always happen that way."

The inquest before NSW Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dillon continues.

© 2012 AAP

“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, donatelife.net

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.

Organ donor: Highest form humanitarianism

NEW YORK, April 15(UPI)

Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam and most branches of Judaism endorse organ donation as the highest gesture of humanitarianism, U.S. doctors say.

Yet, each year, more than 100,000 Americans will need a life-saving organ transplant, but last year fewer than 22,000 U.S. transplants took place, said physicians at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York.

April is National Donate Life Month and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital doctors point out facts about organ donation including:

There are very few medical conditions that would automatically disqualify a person from donating any organs and tissues.

Family members are never held responsible for any costs related to donation.

Although it is important to join a donor registry and indicate organ donation on a driver's license, it is equally important to make family, friends and doctors aware of this decision.

Your medical history is more important than your age. Organs have been transplanted from donors in their 70s and 80s.

Potential organ donors are usually admitted to the hospital after illness or an accident, and have usually experienced a brain aneurysm, stroke, or severe head trauma.

The organ transplant waiting list is blind to wealth and celebrity status. People receive organs based on the severity of the illness, time spent on the waiting list, and blood type.

Donating an organ will not delay funeral arrangements.

It is possible to donate to someone who is not a relative and even to someone from another racial or ethnic group.

“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, donatelife.net

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.

iPod video used to encourage organ donation

Fox News
Published April 12, 2012 / Reuters

An organ donation video people can watch on an iPod while they wait at the Department of Motor Vehicles may encourage more to become donors, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that for folks getting a driver's license in their county, the iPod video seemed to sway the decision on becoming an organ donor.

Of people who saw it, 84 percent consented to be a donor, versus 72 percent of those who didn't watch the video.

The effect was larger among African Americans: 76 percent of those who saw the video became organ donors, compared with just 54 percent of those who did not.

The findings, reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, point to one potential fix for a well-known problem: the need for donor organs far exceeds the supply.

In the U.S., the gap between organ demand and supply is particularly large among minorities.

"One reason is that the need for donor organs is so great," said Dr. J. Daryl Thornton of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, the lead researcher on the new study.

Minorities, and African Americans in particular, have higher rates of health conditions that can necessitate a new organ -- to replace a kidney damaged by high blood pressure or diabetes, for example.

African Americans are three times more likely than whites to develop kidney disease, and they account for one-third of the waiting list for donor kidneys.

Add to that the fact that not enough people consent to be organ donors. Surveys have pointed to some reasons: many people are unaware of the acute need for donor organs; others mistrust the medical establishment and think they won't get life-saving measures if doctors know they are a donor. Some people think their religion disapproves of organ donation, though most have no rules against it.

There have been some efforts, such as billboards and radio spots, to educate people about organ donation. But they haven't met with much success, Thornton told Reuters Health.

He and his colleagues thought a timely video -- shown at the DMV, right before people are asked to become donors -- might work better.


"Video has the ability to capture people on so many different levels," Thornton said.

The researchers' video featured an ethnically diverse group of "real" people -- organ donors and recipients, family members of recipients and family of people who died waiting for an organ.

They all talked about what organ donation meant to them, Thornton said. And the discussion hit on common obstacles to people's willingness to become donors -- like mistrust of doctors and religious views on organ donation.

Thornton's team tested the five-minute video at 12 Cleveland-area DMVs, with two days spent at each location. Half of each day was designated as the "intervention" period (license-seekers watched the video on an iPod), and the other half was the "control" period (no one saw the video).

Overall, 443 people saw the video and 84 percent of them agreed to become organ donors. That compared with 72 percent of the 509 people who did not see the video.

About 20 percent of all study participants were African American. And the video seemed especially influential for them. It raised their consent rate by 22 percentage points, versus 11 percentage points among white license-seekers.

CHANGING VIEWS

Thornton's team also found that people's attitudes shifted after seeing the video. They felt more knowledgeable about organ donation and had fewer "conflicts" about it than their counterparts who had not seen the video.

That runs counter to the conventional wisdom that it's hard to change people's views on organ donation, according to Thornton.

"We just have to present the information in a way that's accessible to people," he said.

As for the practicality of the video, Thornton said, "one of the great things is that it's inexpensive."

In theory, DMVs anywhere could run the video -- and not necessarily via iPod, according to Thornton.

He said it could be shown on existing DMV TV screens, though it's not clear if that would be as effective as the iPod viewing.

Even if iPods were needed, Thornton said, they are "fairly inexpensive now," and DMVs should be able to buy a few. The models used in this study run between $200 and $300.

"I don't think this would be hard for any state to implement," Thornton said. He added that his team is currently working with Ohio to get the video into the rest of the state's DMV locations.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

A big question is still whether any increase in organ-donor consent will ultimately mean a bigger donor-organ supply. "A lot of things happen between consent and donation," Thornton said.

A common scenario, he noted, is that an organ donor dies of a cause that prevents any tissue from being harvested.

In the U.S., more than 100,000 people are on the active waiting list for an organ transplant. But fewer than 30,000 transplants are performed each year, Thornton's team notes in the report.

Minorities make up half of that waiting list, but only account for 30 percent of donors.

That 30 percent does match the proportion of minorities in the U.S. population as a whole. But ideally, experts would like to see more minority donors. Because transplants have a greater chance of success when the donor and recipient are as genetically similar as possible, it's preferable to match people of the same race and ethnicity.

“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, donatelife.net

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.

Organ Donor Networks ring opening bell at NASDAQ

PRESS RELEASE

April 11, 2012, 9:01 p.m. EDT

NJ Sharing Network and New York Organ Donor Network
to Ring The NASDAQ Stock Market Opening Bell
in Celebration of April as National Donate Life Month

The NJ Sharing Network and New York Organ Donor Network will visit the NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square in celebration of April as National Donate Life Month. The month long celebration honors the generosity of organ, eye and tissue donors and their families and commemorates all transplant recipients in the United States. Friday, April 20 will be the inaugural National Donate Life Blue and Green Day, a day when legislators, media partners, corporations, hospitals, and communities will come together to wear blue and green to issue a critical call to action to register as an organ and tissue donor on your driver's license or at www.donatelifeamerica.org

In honor of the occasion, Jessica Melore, one of Donate Life America's "12 Most Inspiring Women of 2012" and Senior Manager of Education and Programs at NJ Sharing Network will ring the Opening Bell.

Where:

NASDAQ MarketSite -- 4 Times Square -- 43rd & Broadway -- Broadcast Studio

When:

Thursday, April 12, 2012 -- 9:15 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. ET

Contact:

Jessica Melore Senior Manager, Education and Partnerships NJ Sharing Network (551) 689-2430 jessicam@sharenj.org

NASDAQ MarketSite:

Jen Knapp (212) 401-8916 Jennifer.knapp@nasdaqomx.com

“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, donatelife.net

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.