I wasn’t purposely ignoring her, I just hadn’t read the second page yet.
And anyway, it’s not like they let you just die.
If they want your organs, you need to be on life support. They only take your organs when you’re brain dead, right, Doctor J?
Check out this site. It’s the US Dept. of Health and Human Services website on organ donation.
Of course, if someone’s already convinced that the docs are just waiting for them to come in to be “harvested,” then this will prove nothing to them…however, for those not in the tinfoil brigade, perhaps this will convince them:
Now, I have no major problems if you decide not to be a organ donor because of squeamishness - it’s your body, after all.
Excellent discussion!
Bibliocat no, no, I meant someone had ignored what she’d said and dropped in another “if they can get my organs they won’t bother saving my life” reasons.
I lost all respect for George Carlin when he made that one of his topics. “Organ doner programs. That shit scare you?”
No, cause I’m not a complete DUMBASS.
Not to say that you’re evil for not wanting your organs donated, but not doing so cause you’re afraid the doctor won’t take care of you is asinine.
No problem, Silentgoldfish. I was just pointing out that I would never purposely ignore Cranky, Queen of the Book Swap.
I never saw Carlin’s bit on organ donation, but I can imagine what he had to say about it.
I think the squeamishness factor is what scares off many people.
I guess that’s okay. I am an organ donor (or rather, I plan to be). I wouldn’t want to donate my body to science. That’s a bit much for me. Take all the organs you need, but I’d rather not be a cadaver for a med student.
I am an organ donor. Sure the idea of a team slicing up your body to extract your organs is pretty icky. So is the idea of autopsies, cremations and being embalmed. To a lesser extent I’m freaked out by the idea of a funeral home bathing and dressing my dead body as well as applying make up and fixing my hair.
Death is pretty undigified. It’s also my last chance to do something good for someone else. The idea of a small child getting the gift of sight or a mother getting a heart and being able to attend her child’s high school graduation, or a father getting a liver and getting to walk his daughter down the aisle.
My life will be over, the body will be just a body (as my mom used to say, “the shell is here, the nut is gone.”). Lots and lots of undignified things are about to be done to my corpse, a surgical team removing organs is small potatoes compared to being stuffed into a coffin to moulder and feed the wurms.
I was vaguely amused by this post:
So, it’s bad for doctors to remove your organs, but it would be okay to be embalmed, cremated or buried?
IIRC, when one is embalmed, some organs are removed and discarded anyway, in the interest of preservation and, um, “freshness,” I guess. Is there a mortician in the house?
IMHO, the idea of being embamed, dressed and whatever by a funeral director is creepy. Also the idea of my eyes and mouth being glued shut. And being locked in a box and buried in the ground. Sorry, but that just creeps me out.
I’m being cremated. That doesn’t bother me at all.
galen ubal- “Myth: If I am in an accident and the hospital knows that I want to be a donor, the doctors will not try to save my life.”
No one here disagrees with this. My point is that there is a possibility that the doctors/EMT’s will not try AS HARD to save your life if you’re a donor because there might be a dis-incentive. Doctors are humans, humans can be biased, therefore doctors can be biased.
Surreal -
The point that the good doctor and others on this board have been trying to make is that the doctor in the emergency room DOES NOT KNOW that you are an organ donor.
Yes, in some states you can put a “donor dot” on your driver’s license. But the doctor is not going to see your driver’s license, which, if it happened to be on you at the time of your accident or injury, is probably still in the pants they cut off you.
And the doctor is certainly not going to have a chance to talk to your family about your post-mortem wishes for your body before he puts his heart and soul into saving your life.
If the doctor doesn’t know who is a donor and who is not, there is no possible way he can make treatment decisions on that basis.
I personally have been an organ donor for as long as I can remember. Recently, after reading discussions at the SDMB about funeral practices, I’ve decided that whole body donation is the way to go. Sure, having medical students cut me up is not nearly as romantic as having my heart beating in someone else’s chest, but maybe one day, one of those medical students could save someone’s life using knowledge she gained from slicing into me.
Nacho4Sara, I’d be interested in hearing more about what process your parents went through to donate their bodies. Is it an either/or proposition? Could I be an organ donor in the event of catastrophic brain injury, and just donate my body to science if it eventually wears out on its own?
If nobody ever bothers to check whether or not you’re an organ donor, the why THE HELL do they want you to put that on you’re driver’s license?
I am not a doctor, but I do have an EMT-B standard of care. If you are worried about a half-assed job on the part of the doctors, let me assure you, good emergency medicine isn’t like singing, acting, or athletics. It’s a mind game, and showing how much you care isn’t going to help. The best providers of emergency medicine aren’t the ones who do their best MASH impression of Alan Alda, jumping on top of their patients and yelling, “Live DAMNIT!”, the best doctors are the ones that work hard to lead their team to most effeciently and quickly administer the most effective treatments for the patient’s problem.
On the link to the story about a person who woke up during their own autopsy: the problem here wasn’t with a lazy doctor, the uncle was transported directly to the morgue. Had the uncle been transported to a hospital, the fact that he was still alive would have been niticed by someone, and he would have recieved treatment for his diatbetic coma as well, which could have just as easily killed him as the original car crash.
Also, how many people have to agree to organ donation of a deceased relative? If I were to meet an untimely death, my dad, the only parent with a cell phone and easiest to get a hold of, wouldprobably respect my wishes to be an organ donor. My mother, on the other hand, will most likely refuse. Will they go ahead with just my dad’s permission? I am certainthat they wouldn;t do it if my mom and dad disagreed. What if they were half-way when they finally contacted my mom?
Moderator’s Note: Just a reminder to everyone that personal insults are not acceptable in Great Debates. Debate the position, don’t attack the poster. (If you absolutely must, y’all know where the Pit is.)
I’m curious; do you have a cite for this assertion? Maybe some study done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or somebody like that?
They don’t check until AFTER THEY’VE TRIED TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. This has been explained AT LEAST SIX TIMES.
Anyway, that check on your driver’s license means absolutely shit-all if your family doesn’t give permission.
Cite cite McCitey cite, please?
Come on, if you are going to argue this and, against all reason, truly believe it, you have to have some proof, right?
Right?
Because otherwise, you have no point. You have an opinion based entirely on paranoid, unproven conjecture. But you do not have a point. And here’s the kicker: without any proof, you’re not convincing anyone in possession of a working, thinking brain versed in some sort of base logical reasoning that your thoughts on this matter are even a distant relative of reality.
I kindly invite you to put up or shut up.
Neither of my parents are home for me to ask, but I do believe you can be both. In case of a premature death (like a motorcycle accident, which is entirely possible as my step-dad owns a Harley), organs would be harvested and then the body would be sent on its merry way. However, as far as I know, both are planning on dying in their old age, at which point their organs will be pretty much useless and their bodies will be sent on their merry way sans harvest. My mom is, in fact, an organ donor and has informed me repeatedly (as I have informed her) that she definitely wants her organs donated, so I assume this is the case, but I can check.
All they had to do was sign a paper; it was really easy to sign up. I admit that I too am capable of being irrational in this matter: I still possess enough modesty that the idea of med students poking at my hoo-ha and playing with my ta-tas makes me decidedly uncomfortable. Plus I’m really attached to the idea of my ashes being blown into the ocean.
I would so go out in a viking pyre if I could, but they frown on those things in Baltimore; I think it’s bad for the Chesapeake or something.
But the point is, the doctors are not going to just stand back and let you die. If you’re in an accident, and you’re DOA, your organs are useless.
For organs to be viable, the person has to be technically alive (there is a better term for this…where’s Doctor J?) but brain dead. This means on Life Support, with machines breathing for them and keeping their heart beating.
The doctors are not going to “let” someone die. Even if they want your organs, they’re going to do everything they can to keep you (or your body) breathing. The donor isn’t even removed from Life Support until the organs are removed.
AFAIK, in cases of organ donation, when a family makes this decision, the transplant team comes in, removes the organs, the body is stiched back up, and then the family goes in to have their last moments with their loved one, as the person is removed from Life Support (as the plug is pulled, IOW).
MEBuckner- “I’m curious; do you have a cite for this assertion?”
Yes.
http://www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/HotMike/document-3.26.1996.0.html
"*According to the study by economists at Virginia Commonwealth University:
Airbag-equipped cars for model years 1989-1993 had higher personal injury claims and collision claims than non-airbag models for the same years.
In Virginia in 1993, drivers of post-1989 model year passenger vehicles with airbags were more likely to be killed in traffic accidents than drivers without them.
In 48 percent of the single-car accidents in which only the driver was killed, that person was driving an airbag-equipped car, although cars with airbags account for only 44 percent of post-1989 cars.
Furthermore, since most single-car crashes involve head-on impact, in which airbags are supposed to reduce fatalities by 24 percent, drivers of cars with airbags should only be 33 percent of those fatalities instead of 48 percent.
Finally, in fatal accidents involving a car with an airbag and a car without one, the driver behind an airbag was at fault nearly three-quarters of the time.*"
This just shows what human nature is like. When we perceive lower risks, so we adjust our behaviour accordingly. Since there are no studies concerning donor status and mortality rates, we can only look at human nature.
Nacho4Sara- “Cite cite McCitey cite, please?”
All I said was that it was a possiblity. You’re saying it is totally impossible for it to happen? If so, that shifts the burden of proof onto YOU.
So PROVE that it is NOT possible that knowledge of organ-donor status could affect patient mortality rates.
I realize nobody who is a donor wants to believe they may have put themselves at increased risk, but I believe it is possible that they may have.
No, it doesn’t.
She asked for a cite. Period. You made what I suppose is an incorrect assumption (You’re saying it is totally impossible for it to happen?). She made no such assertion.
The ball’s still in your court.
Problems with the air bag study:
Bias- the website it is from appears to be biased. Look at their headlines: “Leftist Media’s ‘Plan to Slam Bush’” and
“Leftist Dems Ruined U.S. Security”. Sounds a little paranoid, doesn’t it?
The study only shows correlation, not causation. Air bags could make people drive more recklessly, or those who drive recklessly are more likely to buy cars with airbags. The study says itself “These results are also consistent with “buyer sorting,” which holds that drivers more prone to get into accidents will buy safer cars disproportionately”. The results might also both be caused by another hidden factor.