If you're an organ donor, will hospitals let you die quicker?
No, This is not true, and I have to spend countless volunteer hours fighting these rumors so that people I know won't die waiting for an organ transplant. Have you ever listened to a parent give a speech about their 21 year old son who died waiting for a lung transplant that never came - possibly because people believe rumors liks this one and just let their organs be buried? I have listened to that speech. It makes absolutely no sense, first of all. A doctor, who's so worried about someone else who will die without a transplant, is then going to let an ADDITIONAL person die - in order to donate the organs?. Where is the logic? It's illegal to buy and sell organs in the US. The doctor gains nothing from this financially. Plus, transplant surgery is a specialty. ER docs do not do organ transplants. . Very few hospitals actually include transplant centers; my state, for example, only has one transplant center for the entire state. By law, transplant teams can have no connection to an ER team trying to save someone's life. (That is document in my first source) In the US, organ matching is a very sophisticated and highly regulated process, coordinated by the United Network for Organ Sharing - www.unos.org It is not like a movie; people are not sneaking around, stealing kidneys and then arriving at an ER with them in a cooler filled with ice. There is no legal way to go outside the UNOS system. If the person who is an organ donor is brain dead - which is the requirement to be an organ donor - then that person will be tested MORE than a person who is not an organ donor, to ensure that brain death has actually occurred. A brain dead person has to be kept on a ventilator to be an organ donor; otherwise, the organs are not usuable. He or she may look alive while on the ventilator, but is not. (document in my last source) Organ donation is a miracle and saved my life. I hope everyone will sign up as a donor. Keep in mind that diabetes and high blood pressure are the two leading causes of kidney failure, and I think we all know someone with at least one of those diseases. FYI, in most states, signing up at the DMV or at your state's online registry is now considered a legal document, and if you are 18, your family will not be asked for consent for you to be a donor. Be a hero - the last thing you may do is to save up to 7 other lives.
Is it true that an organ donor card is exactly the same thing as a license for an ER doctor to let you die?
First, if someone goes into cardiac arrest nobody is going to search thru pockets looking for an organ donor card. The ER doctor has nothing to benefit by allowing you to die for your organs. They are not the same doctors who do transplants. Second, even if there was an organ donor card the next of kin has to authorize organ donation. It ensures nothing, only states your wishes. For instance, my license says I am an organ donor but if I were to die my mother doesn't have to honor my wishes. Third, Do Not Resuscitate orders are in effect at all times as long as there is a copy present for medical personnel to see.
If you're an organ donor, will hospitals let you die quicker?
No, This is not true, and I have to spend countless volunteer hours fighting these rumors so that people I know won't die waiting for an organ transplant. Have you ever listened to a parent give a speech about their 21 year old son who died waiting for a lung transplant that never came - possibly because people believe rumors liks this one and just let their organs be buried? I have listened to that speech. It makes absolutely no sense, first of all. A doctor, who's so worried about someone else who will die without a transplant, is then going to let an ADDITIONAL person die - in order to donate the organs?. Where is the logic? It's illegal to buy and sell organs in the US. The doctor gains nothing from this financially. Plus, transplant surgery is a specialty. ER docs do not do organ transplants. . Very few hospitals actually include transplant centers; my state, for example, only has one transplant center for the entire state. By law, transplant teams can have no connection to an ER team trying to save someone's life. (That is document in my first source) In the US, organ matching is a very sophisticated and highly regulated process, coordinated by the United Network for Organ Sharing - www.unos.org It is not like a movie; people are not sneaking around, stealing kidneys and then arriving at an ER with them in a cooler filled with ice. There is no legal way to go outside the UNOS system. If the person who is an organ donor is brain dead - which is the requirement to be an organ donor - then that person will be tested MORE than a person who is not an organ donor, to ensure that brain death has actually occurred. A brain dead person has to be kept on a ventilator to be an organ donor; otherwise, the organs are not usuable. He or she may look alive while on the ventilator, but is not. (document in my last source) Organ donation is a miracle and saved my life. I hope everyone will sign up as a donor. Keep in mind that diabetes and high blood pressure are the two leading causes of kidney failure, and I think we all know someone with at least one of those diseases. FYI, in most states, signing up at the DMV or at your state's online registry is now considered a legal document, and if you are 18, your family will not be asked for consent for you to be a donor. Be a hero - the last thing you may do is to save up to 7 other lives.
How do I change my organ donor status?
First, let me clarify that I have spoken with firefighters, ER nurses and ambulance EMTs, and all of them have confirmed that they do not check your id before beginning to work on you. Second, the doctors who treat you are not the doctors who would perform an organ recovery if you were a potential organ donor. Last, you would have to be declared brain dead by two doctors in order for the organ recovery agency to be called to approach your family about the possibility of your becoming an organ donor (or for them to come recover if your state has first-person consent). There is only one case that sounds like what you are speaking of. A Northern California doctor possibly gave sedatives to speed up someone's heart stopping during a rare type of organ donor case called Donation after Cardiac Death. In this case, someone with irreversible brain damage is taken off respiratory support, and their heart must stop beating within a specifc time frame. If it stops within the time frame, the organs are recovered. If it does not, then the organs are not recovered. He did not take the organs prematurely - because the nurses recognized that what he was doing was unethical and violates the laws which organ recovery doctors are supposed to follow. They did not allow the recovery to occur (which is what should happen in a case like this, so we know the system is working). With brain dead patients, sometimes people on respiratory support seem like they are alive - their heart is beating, the machine is making it seem like they're taking breaths because their chest moves up and down, they twitch, etc. They are not alive - my aunt was an organ donor and I can testify to the fact that it seemed like she was alive when she had already been declared brain dead. Brain death is death - even if the heart keeps beating after you remove the respiratory support. Irreversible brain damage is not brain death, but the fact is that person will never recover from being in a vegitative state. This does not justify the doctor's actions, however, and if it is true that he did what is claimed, he should be prosecuted. Doctors in this field should be concerned with transparency and being ethical above all else - including recovering organs to save someone's life.
Do they let you die If you're an organ donor?
When a person is considered to be brain dead, two doctors (not connected in any way to the Transplant process ) do alot of different tests to be sure this is so and both of them have to sign a form stating this before the removal of any organs (procurement) is done. You can have the organ taken when you are declared to be brain dead, of which they were keeping your body on life support machines...or they can wait and remove the life support machines and your heart will stop beating. Then take the organs. They will not kill a patient to recover organs for another patient. The doctors oath is first: do no harm. If they can save your life, they will do so. The doctors have to notify UNOS... United Network of Organ Sharing and UNOS decides what hospital will receive your organs for transplant. Organs can only be out of the body for a certain time period before they will not be able to be transplanted and still function. However, there is controversy over Cardiac Death which is when a person suffers “irreversible cessation of respiratory and circulatory function” meaning that a person’s organs are unable to function on their own after the removal of life support. How long should they wait after the heart stops beating to take the organs? And if they transplant the organ into another human and it functions...then there is a chance it would have function in the patient if help was provided. There are different places on the web where it discusses Cardiac Death Controversy...if you like to place it in your search engine. http://voices.yahoo.com/donation-after-c... When do we really know a patient has died? I believe it will take "time" to know if the patient truly has passed on....time that is being eliminated by needing to keep the organ functioning for someone else.... especially if it is the heart donation itself.
Can you chose who you donate an organ to?
Living donation is becoming more and more. However, not all Transplant Centers will perform them. It is best to contact the Transplant Center, before hand and see what types of organ they transplant and whether they do live donations. You should be 18 years of age or older. You must be in very good health with no serious medical problems. They will take up to 60 % of your liver for the recipient. Both the portion left inside of you and the part they receive will regenerate new cells and become a whole liver again. I'm giving you links so you can read up on this. You will need to go through an evaluation process of seeing doctors and having testing done. Any organ requires that the blood types are compatible...but, each organ type may have different recommendations for a transplant to take place. When giving part of a liver, the size of the person usually isn't a problem. Living Donation Sites: http://www.transplantliving.org http://www.organdonor.gov/ http://health.howstuffworks.com/organ-do... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation Booklets and pamphlets: http://www.unos.org/SharedContentDocuments/Living_Donation_Booklet_Final.pdf http://www.giftoflife.on.ca/assets/pdfs/FinalLivingLiverJune06.pdf
Is it risky to be registered as an organ donor?
It is not at all risky to be registered as an organ donor. No one is going to turn off your life support so they can take your organs. No one is going to kill you to get your choice kidneys or liver. Your doctors are not the transplant doctors; your doctors are not scavenging for organs for some (likely unknown to them) transplant patients.I would not call this so much an urban myth as a bad science fiction/fantasy trope.NO ONE: not the doctor, hospital, nurses, etc. get any money or any other type of compensation for organs for transplant. (In the US; I live here and can’t speak about other countries/health care systems.)Transplant’s costs have nothing to do with the perceived monetary value of the transplanted organs themselves.Transplants are expensive because it takes a great deal of knowledge, skill and labor to perform all the tasks connected to the transplant. No one, no one’s insurance and no organization pays for the actual organ. There are costs for the OR, costs for maintaining the organs prior to removal, removing the organs (because this is also highly skilled surgery), packing, transporting, receiving, unpacking and readying them for each transplant surgery; an entire specialized team of people is involved. Then the transplant recipient has costs for OR, surgical prep, anesthesia, anesthetist/anesthesiologist, surgeon(s), assistant surgeon(s), specialized nurses, recovery room, transplant ICU, etc. Again, an entire team of differently specialized people.And a further note: Organs are only harvested from dead, deceased bodies who cannot be saved to go on and live their own lives.A fellow Quoran has told me that since the deceased organ donor’s body is kept on “life support” to keep the organs perfused with blood until they are removed, organ donation takes organs from —GASP!—living people!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!Nope. A dead body on a ventilator is a dead body on a ventilator.This Quoran was an ignoramus, plain and simple.
Will you donate your organs when you die?
I believe in helping where help can be given. Especially when it comes at no disadvantage to me. Why would I be so selfish as to keep my organs when I no longer need them if they could let someone else live longer? When I die, I will allow everything that the medical field can use, except for my skin. My eyes could allow someone to see, so of course I’ll donate them. However, I will not donate my skin for the sake of my funeral appearance. I will request an open coffin, and I don’t want to be seen without skin. That would probably traumatize the guests.Some might object to this on spiritual grounds. And frankly, I feel as though there isn’t a good way to argue that you shouldn’t based on any religion. Christianity and Islam, for example, both state that you should help others whenever you can. The argument of “why extend your life when you could have eternal life” seems rather irrational, especially when Christianity states that an attempt to shorten or end your life is an act against God. I think helping others live is one of the most important things you can do in life, and I think it would make a good conclusion for mine.“He lived as an anesthesiologist in the military, and saved countless lives in his life. Now, in his death, he will save a few more.”
How to remove organ donation from my driving license?
I had to do a little digging for this one since I'm Canadian and your forms are different from ours lol. You must fill out either form DL-80 for a non-commercial driver's license, form DL-80CD for a commercial driver's license or form DL-54B for a photo ID card and pay the required fee to receive an updated product to remove the organ donor from you license. Now this was for the State of Pennsylvania and I'm not sure if it's the same all across the country. If this doesn't help I recommend calling your DMV to find out what steps you need to take.
Why should a person be an organ donor when cryonics is possible?
Why should a person be an organ donor when cryonics is possible?Cryonics is possible? That’s news to me, but I guess it is as possible as jumping from a plane without a parachute. You can technically do it. It’s the landing that’s problematic.Likewise, we can freeze living things. We have been doing it for a long time. It’s the unfreezing and bringing back to life that’s problematic.Cryogenics has been successful with some very simple organisms, but there are just too many issues with the human body. The biggest success to date has been cryogenically freezing a rabbit kidney and then transplanting it into a rabbit and freezing a brain (Mammal brain frozen and thawed out perfectly for first time) .Reading the article doesn’t exactly fill me with hope.Then there is the issue of placing someone in organ failure in deep freeze and resuscitating them in a far future when a cure has been invented. Forgetting for a moment the technical issues, that technique would present problems for both the family and the patient.For the family, their loved one is as good as dead, sitting in a deep freezer somewhere. For the patient, assuming this was viable at all, he would wake up in a far future where even his family wouldn’t remember him.Immagine if your great-great-grand father showed up at your door one day, holding a hospital bill and some out of fashion clothes.Sign up as a organ donor. Cryogenics is a pipe dream for now. You can choose to let your organ rot inside your dead body or extend someone’s life.To me that’s always been an easy choice. It never crossed my mind I would be the beneficiary of that, but I was. A heroic young man chose to donate his organs as he was dying. That was 15 years ago and I am still alive because of his selfless act.