BiblioCat: …I’d rather not be a cadaver for a med student.
I would, if I got to tattoo smartass remarks on various parts beforehand. (“You’re grossed out? How do you think I feel?” Hee hee, I kill me. :)) That not seeming very practicable, I decided just to go with the organ donation thingy.
No determination of donor status is made until the patient has been determined to be brain dead. This is not a hard determination to make–the patient is not breathing spontaneously, does not respond to painful stimulus, and his pupils are fixed and dilated. When that determination is made, the patient is dead. Period. That is the time that will be recorded on the death certificate.
Then, and only then, will the organ procurement organization (KODA, in my state) be contacted. They will find your driver’s license if they can, so they can tell your family what your wishes were regarding donation. If the family gives consent, they will contact the transplant team. Most of the time, the doctor has no part in this whatsoever; the procurement organization has people who are trained to handle this specific situation. The doctor is filling out the death certificate at this point.
In short, the situation feared by the tinfoil hat brigade is simply at odds with the way things really happen. Whether or not you have signed your donor card will have no bearing on how brain dead you are. Is it theoretically possible? Sure. But considering what strong advocates of organ donation ER doctors tend to be, it’s at least as likely that if he saw your unsigned donor card, he would get pissed off and let you die. But that isn’t going to happen either, because he won’t be seeing it before you’re unequivocally dead.
Dr. J
I prolly should have said under 17. I got this from a magazine called That’s Life, which included it in a list of “shock” statistics, and said seven JUVENILES (presumably younger than drivers license getters). Indeed I did not believe it either, but it was there, and the magazine is indeed a believable source (though you would not have heard of it as it is Australian only).
Perhaps it was a misprint, but even if there were 70 or even 700 it’s still an awfully low figure.
I can still remember reading it and going “oh, that is EVIL!”
Ice Lord Ssarl considering that no actual age was mentioned, I disagree that only 7 people are organ donors under 18, and I also disagree with your new claim, that only 7 people under 17 are organ donors.
It seems that “That’s Life” used the term juvenile from Dictionary.com: a juvenile is a child, or a young animal which has not yet reached sexual maturity.
While I am not for one second agreeing with you that that magazine is a believable source (we may have to agree to disagree on that matter) it does seem as though it may be true, though I have not found any reliable (or non-reliable) statistics so far. I have no problem with only 7 pre-pubescent children signing up for organ donation, if that’s how they are using the word ‘juvenile’, because kids that age don’t have any great need to be thinking about that sort of stuff, anyway.
I too, wish more people would donate, but using “shock” statistics isn’t the way to do so, IMO. I honestly think there are many teens who decide to become organ donors when they go for their driver’s licence, probably not as many as either of us would like, but still way more than 7 or 70 or even 700. Heck, I knew more than 7 people who were organ donors in my class at high school, and that wasn’t that many years ago.
[Fixed link. – MEB]
Mods, a link fix is needed in aisle goo… thanks 
I am not religious or spiritual in the least, but I don’t consider my body to have too much to do with who I am.
I understand there’s a gross-out factor involved when you think of someone cutting your corpse open, but you need to remember that it’s your CORPSE. You are dead. None of that stuff is any use to you anymore, and it cannot really even by said to be your property, as you no longer exist. (Or, depending on your beliefs, in another plane of existence without any way of interacting with your corpse.) Cutting your dead body up is not the same as cutting YOU up. It is not you.
My body is useful to me for the time being. When I am done with it, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be of use to someone else. Frankly, I think it’s quite selfish not to be an organ donor.
And if you really think God won’t let you into paradise because you let somebody who really needed your body use it when you didn’t any more…Perhaps you need to think a little about what your god’s priorities are, and what they should be.
I don’t think it’s impossible. Somewhere out there, it’s possible there’s a psychotic ER doctor who never recovered from his mother’s death while waiting for a new liver; it’s possible that he channeled Ted Bundy and fooled everyone around him into believing that he is perfectly sane and normal, but when the witching hour strikes he purchases bulk liver at his local Food Lion and hunts the woods near his home; it’s possible he finds little bunnies and woodchucks and beavers, bludgeons them to death, and practices replacing their livers with the livers from Food Lion; it’s possible he chants his poor dead mother’s name while doing this and vows, after the gruesome deeds are done, to avenge her needless death; it’s possible that he intentionally lets patients die in the ER, but also sneaks into other patients’ rooms and injects them with lethal doses of digitoxin so that their organs might be put to better use; it’s possible that his living room features framed, matted pictures of livers that inspire him to do more justice in the name of his poor dead mother; it’s possible that when he’s in the mood, he hops into the bathtub, applies some local anasthetic, and starts hacking away at his own body in hopes of donating his liver to a greater good.
It’s possible, but it’s not likely.
Maybe the tinfoil hat is processing so many cosmic energy rays that you can’t read this properly, but try:
Prove it happened, once.
If there’s only a few minutes after I’m dead for them to use my organs, what happens if they can’t reach my relatives in that time? Would they not use my organs even though I have a donor card? That doesn’t seem right at all. I’m an adult, I get to make my own decisions about everythng else.
I guess they’re afraid of being sued by a donor’s relatives who don’t approve. It sucks how much fear of lawsuits has screwed up our society.
Not to reopen this utterly, but I suspect that they might find out you are an organ donor at some point. They are going to use your ID to, well, ID you, so they can find next of kin or look for extant medical records. So yes, they have the potential to find out you are an organ donor. I think it’s naive to assume no doctor or EMT will ever know until you’re brain-dead.
However, I do think it’s naive to think that knowing you’re a potential donor is going to make a doctor or EMT throw out their training, their pride, their drive, their hippocratic oath to let you slip away so they can hand your organs over to a transplant team. As I’ve already said, it’s a bad trade. Harvested organs are the best cure for some people right now, but this is by no means an exact science. Your organs won’t work in someone else as well as they work in you. A doctor’s first interest is in making sure YOU have every chance in the world to keep on using them YOURSELF.
This might sound bad, but personally…if I am so badly injured or sick that I’m that close to dying, close enough that a doctor could let me die simply by subconsciouly not doing his or her damnedest because my organs are on his/her mind… well, maybe I’m better off gone than to live on via incremental-yet-heroic invasive efforts to keep me going.
I am a card carrying member of the future organ donors of whatever club. I have been since I was old enough to sign for myself.
I want anything I have to be used for someone else. then I want to be cremated. Call it a Fire Sale. ;D
When my brother died last year, some form of peace (for my mom) was gained by signing his organs to the ‘Gift of Life’ program. They were able to take his heart valves and corneas and something else. Because we had to remove life support, only smaller items like this were able to be taken. The only time Gift of Life can harvest ( ain’t that a lovely word?) take a major organ ( heart/kidney/whatever) is in the event of brain death. It’s the law.
I have never asked my mom if she received any information on if anything was usable or not ( he had Muscular Dystrophy) but she did receive the obligatory letter from GOL thanking her.
When my inlaws watch our children, I have an emergency medical sheet for them with all th pertinant medical info/doctor’s numbers and, yes, the morbid person I am, in the event of death, our wishes to donate our child/ren’s organs. In this day and age of near instant communication, it is practically impossible to be out of touch for more than an hour or so, but that hour or so is so critical health wise. I’m just covering my bases.
Please don’t assume that your organs are no good because you are not totally healthy. A relative of mine was old, smoked and drank, had arteriosclerosis and diabetes… but they were still able to use his corneas, so today someone who would be blinded from catarcts can see.
It’s possible that the nurse looking after you will be an angel of death. Better not go to the hospital, because it’s possible you’re at an increased risk of being serially murdered.
It’s possible that when you get that operation you need, the doctor will use you as a teaching opportunity for a young surgeon learning a new procedure, fully expecting that an increased mortality rate in training is acceptable. Better not go to the hospital, because it’s possible you’re at an increased risk of being a training mortality.
It’s possible that your anesthesiologist will be a little distracted that day, and will fail to properly monitor the equipment, leaving you brain-dead on the table. Better not go to the hospital, because it’s possible you’re at an increased risk of dying from your caregiver’s incompetence.
One of two things should happen now: either you’ll be horrified at the possibilities you’ve missed, and will never get out of bed again in a vain attempt to reduce every conceivable risk to your life; or, you’ll realize that not every speculative possibility is worth taking seriously. Considering the very real and demonstrable good that can come from organ donation, my decision is obvious.
Note that for each scenario, I was able to find an example with a few minutes searching on the web. It’s called a cite; try it sometime.
There is one good reason not to “donate” organs and tissue; your selfless act may be used to fatten the wallets of stockholders in the $500 million for-profit tissue banking industry. Most people believe that their donated organs are provided without charge (outside of surgical costs) to recipients, but this is not always true. In an award winning five part expose entitled, The Body Brokers, published in April 2000, the Orange County Register detailed how some non-profit tissue banks funnel organs and tissue to for profit tissue banks without telling the donor families:
Personally, I think my bits are worth more, but if anybody is going to profit, it should be my own family, not some corporate ghoul who does whatever is necessary to please the stockholders.
I tore up my donor card.
I don’t follow your logic. No matter who’s making money off the deal, PEOPLE STILL NEED THE ORGANS OR THEY WILL DIE.
There were some comments lumping Jews in with J-witnesses, claiming that we do not allow organ donation.
This is not correct. While there are strict laws concerning treatment of the corpse, ANY JEWISH LAW CAN BE BROKEN TO SAVE A LIFE (with three exceptions).
Organ donation from a cadaver to save a life is not just permitted; It is obligatory.
There are some tricky issues, with us defining death differently then some secular authorities; we insist on brain stem death while some secular authorities will accept cerebrial death with a functioning brain stem.
Organ dontation is only permitted to directly save a life. Donating to medical research is not permissable.
Dontain of organs from a living person are commendable, but not obligatory if there is any risk to the living donar.
The above is taken from this summary of a responsum from Rabbi Tendler, Professor of Talmud and of Biology at Yeshiva University.
http://www.transweb.org/reference/articles/donation/rabbi_tendler.html
I signed up for organ donation last year in Oz when I was 17.
Whoops. Just saw the update by Ice Lord Ssarl.
I am more likely to believe that only 7 kids under say 11 signed up this year, if only because I have absolutely no idea of any way to sign up other than when you get your licence.
Do you know?
Oh yeah, I wouldn’t say “That’s Life” is a very reputable source either. 
It seems that many people are implying that organ donation is a moral responsibility that most, if not all people should observe; I find it strange that an advance in medical technology (the ability to transplant organs) should create such a weighty and brand new morality…
hansel- “It’s possible that the nurse looking after you will be an angel of death. Better not go to the hospital, because it’s possible you’re at an increased risk of being serially murdered.”
You don’t have to tell me about these things- believe me, I KNOW. I also know about the 20% of ICU nurses who admitted that they have actually KILLED a patient. I’m glad you brought these things up though, because others here probably weren’t aware of them.
But there IS a big difference. Going to a hospital could put your life at some risk, but it may also have some benefit to YOU, depending on how sick you are. Giving your organs could put you at some risk, but there is absolutely NO BENEFIT to you, since you’re already dead.
I’ve practiced for about 20 years now, in hospital and out, and I’ve never been aware of the donor status of my patients during any critical incidents. Its not how most of us docs think.
Might as well hypothesize that some crazed ER doc will check for organ donor status on the driver’s license, not see it there, and think: “What an asshole, they’re not an organ donor! I’m not gonna do squat to save their lives!” It’s about as sensible as some of the other hypotheses floated about in this debate.