This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern Kaitlynn McKibbin.
Throughout high school, I knew I wanted to make a difference in the community around me. After working at my local hospital for a couple of months, I started to notice that many people were impacted by organ donation in my small town alone. Soon after, I went to a healthcare conference in Indianapolis, IN, and I learned about groups advocating for organ donors and donor recipients. This is when I knew I wanted to be involved. With this information, I decided to start a Student Organ Donation Advocates club at my high school. It started with just me and two other girls, but in a year membership grew to 30 students and multiple teachers. With this group, we were able to reach out to the community with many events and show them that we are fighting for them too. Ultimately, this club showed me the love and support that the organ donation community has to offer and the privilege of supporting so many people who have been impacted by organ donation.
So how does organ donation affect people like you and me? Here is what we discovered.
Saving lives
Arguably the most important thing about organ donation is that it saves lives. One organ donor can save up to eight lives with just their main organs alone. These main organs include the kidneys, heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, and small intestines. As medicine has progressed, this list has grown, allowing more people with life-threatening diseases to attain a higher quality of life and spend more time with their loved ones.
Enhancing quality of life
In addition to the main organs, tissues can be donated as well. One tissue donor can enhance more than 75 lives. Many kinds of tissues can be donated and the list continues to grow. Some tissues that can be donated include corneas, skin, heart valves, bones, veins, and tendons. These tissues are used to help patients with severe burns, torn ligaments or tendons, and diseases such as cancer.
Not everyone is eligible
Even though so many organs can be donated, only 3 of every 1,000 people are medically eligible to become organ donors. Blood and oxygen must flow through the organ after the donor has passed to keep the tissues alive and the donors and recipients must be a match in terms of blood type and body size. The distance of the donor from the recipient also plays a role because certain organs can only stay viable for a limited time after they are recovered.
Misconceptions about donation
There is a common misconception that not all life-saving measures are taken when someone is an organ donor. Yet, the same care is given to all patients, and it is only after an individual passes away that physicians consider organ donation. In the case of organ donation, extra tests that wouldn’t be done on someone who is not a donor are completed to ensure the donor has passed.
Another misconception is that your family will be charged for the donation process, or that it will affect the type of funeral you can have. When someone is an organ donor, all the tests and recovery process costs are covered by the hospital or insurance, and there is no additional cost to the family. It is also possible to have an open casket funeral after organ donation. Physicians are cautious when recovering a patient’s organs and make sure that this is possible if that was the patient’s wish.
Conclusion
More than 1,000,000 Americans and more than 1,000 Hoosiers (Indiana natives) are waiting on the transplant list. When a person is severely sick and their organs begin to fail they may be evaluated by a physician to be put on the transplant list. Someone is added to the transplant list every 9 minutes, but unfortunately, many people on this list pass before they can receive a potentially life-saving donation. Organ donation is a big decision, but being informed about the process is a great way to learn how you can help others. If you are not already and would like to be an organ donor, you can visit the website linked here to register in just a few minutes!
Edited by J Wolny and Elizabeth Rosdeitcher
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