Organ Donation

Organ donation.

Transplantation is now an established form of treatment for organ failure in childhood. Much has been published on the outcome and management of children with organ transplants, the ethical issues have been widely discussed, and the criteria for the diagnosis of brain death have been established. Most transplanted organs are taken from donors who are brain dead but have a circulation and are be...

Organ Donation Awareness: Rethinking Media Campaigns

Organ donation breakthrough collaborative: increasing organ donation through system redesign.

Virginia McBride and Jade Perdue are public health analysts in the Division of Transplantation at the Health Resources and Services Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services in Rockville, Md. Organ donation saves lives. The use of organ transplantation to treat people with end-stage organ failure is both medically effective and cost-effective and is now considered mainstr...

Compelled organ donation.

Along with ethical considerations, compelling an individual to donate organs, tissues, or bodily fluids brings several legal doctrines into conflict. The privacy of one's body is generally considered sacrosanct by American courts, which have upheld a competent adult's right to refuse medical procedures, even in cases when they are necessary to save the life of another. Although medical and lega...

Consent for organ donation.

Improving the consent rate for solid organ donation from deceased donors is a key component of strategies in the UK and other countries to increase the availability of organs for transplantation. In the UK, the law is currently clear on what forms consent may take, with the views of the individual expressed previously in life taking priority. Such views may have been expressed prospectively, vi...