Journal of transplant coordination : official publication of the North American Transplant Coordinators Organization (NATCO)
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Advances in organ recovery and transplantation have provided us with the skills and opportunity to save, extend, and improve the quality of life for many. But with these opportunities have come challenges to redefine our practice and relationships with donor and recipient families. ⋯ In the past, communication between donor families and recipients has been anonymous and highly controlled, with much inconsistency among and within the transplant community, leaving many involved in the process confused and frustrated. Transplant professionals may wish to consider critically the common ethical values of autonomy, beneficence, salience and benefit of choice in making decisions about information shared with and contact between donor families and recipients.
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Comparative Study
Ethical assessments of brain death and organ procurement policies: a survey of transplant personnel in the United States.
The Questionnaire on Prolonging and Shortening Life was developed to assess the views of medical personnel regarding brain death, organ procurement policies, and related issues. The questionnaire was completed by 189 transplant physicians, 197 clinical coordinators, 150 medical students, and 70 nursing students. Ninety-five percent supported the so-called dead donor rule. ⋯ More than 60% supported procuring organs from anencephalic and "higher brain-dead" patients, although patients in both groups are not dead by current legal standards. Performance on items relating to so-called non-heart-beating organ donation suggested that 75% of the group do not support non-heart-beating organ donation without assurance that the donors are brain-dead before procurement begins. Given that current recommendations to increase organ donation look to non-heart-beating organ donation rather than to anencephalic patients and those in a persistent vegetative state, these findings suggest that further ethical discussion and analysis are urgently needed.