Are You An Organ Donor?

So, what do you think? Are you planning to be an organ donor when the time comes? Yup, it's a pretty blunt question and I'm betting for most everyone, there is a pretty blunt answer one way or the other. Or maybe you're undecided ... well, I guess this article is for folks like you who are sitting on the fence about whether or not this is something that you will want to do. Okay, let's take a look.
This is an extremely controversial subject. Ask 10 people and you'll invariably get 10 different reasons why organ donation is a good thing or a bad thing. At it's basest level, organ donation means that when your life ends, you will be maintained on basic life support long enough for doctors to rip you open and harvest your organs! Gross, right?! Who wants to be disected (dead or alive) and have the bits and pieces that kept you alive all these years removed?!! And yet, there is another way to view this ...

Of course, when you die, you will no longer require your organs to survive. And you won't feel a thing when they are removed. The body that has been the shell holding all the precious things that make you unique will have no further purpose and neither will your organs unless they can be successfully transplanted into another human being potentially prolonging their life or at the very least improving its quality.

We have the science now to prolong life really indefinitely by using machines to breathe for us and medications to keep vital organs functioning, but that's not quality living. You can't wander in a spring woods when you're attached to half a hospital! You can't communicate with your loved ones when you are brain dead. When this time comes, it's time to release the energy of your life into the universe and give up the shell that supported your life ... including its contents.

Your heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, pancreas, tissues ... even your eyes. Any or all of these things can change the lives of others for the better ... and you get to live on in a way, through those people and their families. Wouldn't it be nice for your family to know that the heart that loved them beats on and continues to spread that love into the world? Imagine how your family might feel knowing that you are a hero! Imagine being able to change the life of a diabetic child who suffers through several shots a day with the gift of your pancreas or your eyes allowing a blind parent to see their child for the first time!

The concept of organ donation frightens many people ... but perhaps it's not the organ donation so much as the mortality that causes the fear. We all know intellectually that there is no reason for us to take our organs with us. They can be recycled just like so many things we use in our daily lives to either improve another life or through research to improve many lives.

There is also the school of thought that healthcare professionals see your organ donor card and reduce the level of care you receive in favour of someone who needs your organs. Is it possible that the sickest ones are left and those with a greater chance of survival might be favoured by doctors? Frankly, I don't think so. These people take an oath to "First, do no harm." Reducing or removing treatment from a potential organ donor would certainly contradict the core belief of their ethics system.

I'm not saying that unethical behaviour never happens in the medical community. I'm sure it is the same as any other, but I believe strongly that doctors are motivated by their ability to save even the most gravely ill or injured patients and that they take it quite personally when they can't.

Generally, those within the medical community that I have talked to on the subject have unequivocably said that, they NEVER remove care from even the most critically ill or injured patient until there is absolutely no hope available for that patient's survival without the support of machines. In most areas, brain death is the determining factor for cessation of treatment and the testing associated with that diagnosis is not cursory. Just imagine the lawsuits that might ensue if it could be proven that a doctor had arbitrarily decided to let a patient expire when there was any tenable hope at all! Malpractice would take on a whole new meaning!

For what it's worth, I am an organ donor. I believe strongly that it is the right thing to do for me and for those whose lives I may be able to save or improve by this one last act. By the time any action is taken on this decision, I don't expect I will be consulted for my opinion, but I'd like to think that I have a generous enough spirit to want that for others.

One last thing ... whatever you decide ... organ donor or not ... Tell your family, your physician and anyone else that might be in a position to be making decisions at a time when you won't be able to communicate. Make your wishes clear. It will save those you care most about the heartbreaking decision they would otherwise need to make on your behalf.

So where do you stand on this issue? Give it some thought!



About the Author
Wendy Blair, President of EMERG-e-Solve Inc. Parenting a Type 1 Diabetic and wanting to control the important decisions about healthcare for herself and her family led her to develop a user-friendly software called the LIFECompass Personal Health Record. For more information on the LIFECompass PHR and related topics, visit her blog at http://www.lifecompassphr.info or email blairwen@rogers.com