The debate regarding the ethical issues about organ donation and transplantation has been present for many years. This is primarily due to the unique exchange that must occur. No other treatment so intimately involves the public. People must donate their organs or tissues to make the treatment possible. The question that remains is why are people not donating their organs?
One of the main reasons people do not donate organs is distrust of the medical profession. People are afraid that physicians will declare the patient's death prematurely for the sole purpose of retrieving their organs. This may be due to the lack of knowledge regarding the procedure used to protect potential donors. Many individuals do not understand that a physician must declare the patient brain dead before the organs can be retrieved. Declaring a patient brain dead is not an easy process. Knowing about and understanding the difficulty of declaring brain death may help potential donors realize that physicians do not randomly make these decisions. for the purpose of retrieving organs. The following criteria for the decision of brain death must be met:
2. Exclusion of reversible conditions, such as hypothermia (core temperature below 96.8 F), drug intoxication or metabolic imbalances.
3. Clinical examination of the patient reveals the absence of cerebral function (speaking, facial interaction), no spontaneous movements (except those originating from the spinal cord), no response to stimulation, no brain stem reflexes (pupil reaction to light, blink response, gag or cough reflex, swallowing), and apnea (lack of spontaneous respiration).
4. All findings remain unchanged for six hours and the patient is reevaluated.
So as you can see, the decision to halt a life is not an easy one.
In order to donate organs, an abundance of blood supply must be maintained to the organs. Several procedures must be done to ensure the pro