Organ Donation
Janice Adams, nurse practitioner in the Department of Anesthesiology at UMass Memorial Medical Center and in-house coordinator for New England Organ Bank.
Janice Adams is a nurse practitioner in the Department of Anesthesiology at UMass Memorial Medical Center and the in-house coordinator for New England Organ Bank. Ms. Adams received her Master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts Graduate School of Nursing and has been a board-certified Acute Care Nurse Practitioner since 1998.
She is a member of the Medical Center’s Organ and Tissue Donation Committee, the Critical Care Operations Committee, and the hospital ethics committee and has represented UMass Memorial in national organizations related to organ donation. She is responsible for educating staff about organ donation and facilitating donations at the Medical Center.
Together, UMass Memorial and the New England Organ Bank are one of the 58 organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in the country and have helped to increase awareness and the actual number of donors. Through their efforts and the compassion of the Medical Center’s donor families, more than 150 organs have been donated in the past two years alone; 150 people on the national transplant waiting list (of more than 112,000 people) received the Gift of Life.
In addition, hundreds of lives have been improved through tissue transplants. In recognition of its efforts, the Medical Center has been awarded the distinguished Medal of Honor for the past five years by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. With an average of 18 people on the national transplant waiting list dying every day due to lack of organs for transplant, the work is just beginning.
Thank you to all who submitted questions for our Ask the Expert: Organ Donor session. Please see below for the full Q&A transcript.
More Information:
- February 14th is National Donor Day.
- Nationally, more than 112,000 patients are waiting for an organ.
- In 2011, there were about 7,000 deceased donors in addition to about 5,000 living organ donors, resulting in close to 24,000 transplants
- The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) maintains the only national patient waiting list and features the most comprehensive data available in any single field of medicine.
- For more information on organ and tissue donation, please contact the New England Organ Bank
- The UMass Memorial Transplant Program strongly believes in organ and tissue donation as a way to save thousands of lives for individuals waiting for an organ transplant. To learn about our highly skilled transplant team, living donor kidney transplant program and for contact and patient referral information, visit: UMass Memorial Organ Transplant Surgery.
Physician
Janice Adams, nurse practitioner
Q:
What does it mean to be a non-directed donor? And what are the other types of tissue and organ donors?
A:
When someone consents to be an organ and/or tissue donor, they consent to giving the Gift of Life to the patients who are most in need, regardless of sex, race, class, etc. (non-directed donation). In a directed donation, the donor/donor family gives an organ to a specific person if that person is already on the national transplant waiting list and is a match.
Organs that may be donated at time of death include heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys, and small bowel (intestines). In addition to organ donation at time of death, some organs can come from live donors.
For example, UMass Memorial Medical Center has a living liver donor program as well as a living kidney donor program. (People have two kidneys and can function well with just one, giving the other to a family member or friend who needs one and is a match. Many people don’t know that they can donate a portion of their liver to someone—and the remaining part of their liver regenerates to almost its original size.) Tissue donation after death may include corneas, skin, bone, heart valves, ligaments, vessels, and skin—all very important for patients in need.
Q:
Kind of a weird question but, I am registered as an organ donor and concerned about what happens to my body once organs are donated.
A:
Not a weird question at all! First, I want to thank you for registering! Second, I want to reassure you that donors are treated with the same professionalism, respect and care as any patient. Once organs are recovered in the operating room, the donor’s body is brought to the morgue, as with any death. The body is then released to the funeral home of the family’s choice.
Q:
I am overweight but otherwise healthy—my “BMI” is 35 but I have no medical problems, thankfully. Would I not be considered a good donor?
Q:
Can a 35 year old male with diabetes and high blood pressure be a donor?
A:
These two questions both focus on criteria for donating, so I’ll answer them together.
A BMI of 35 alone would not rule someone out as a potential donor; nor would diabetes and high blood pressure. What’s important is your age, whether you kept your diabetes or high blood pressure under control, your medical history, and your cause of death. The function and health of the individual organ is evaluated for all donors. If the various tests and laboratory results show no evidence of disease in the organ, the case would move forward and the person can be considered for organ donation.
Q:
Why is there such a huge gap between the number of people on the transplant waiting lists and the number of organs available for transplant?
A:
Great question. Most people are surprised to learn that very few people are actually eligible to donate organs at time of death. For example, at UMass Memorial Medical Center, fewer than 5% of the people who die are classified as potential organ donors.
In accordance with federal guidelines and hospital policies, our staff refers all deaths (potential tissue donors) and all imminent deaths (potential organ donors) to our affiliated Organ Procurement Organization (New England Organ Bank). Of the approximately 500 “imminent death” referrals per year, only about 30 are ultimately classified as medically suitable.
Our national goal of having a 75% donor/family consent rate would result in 22 donor cases at UMass Memorial. Many other hospitals have less donor potential than UMass Memorial, due to their patient population. You can see why the gap exists and why it’s so important to talk with your family and register as a donor.
Q:
Who pays for the cost of organ donation?
A:
It costs no money to be an organ donor. Neither surviving family members nor the estate of a deceased donor is responsible for any of the costs associated with the donation process. The federally-designated Organ Procurement Organization (in our area, New England Organ Bank) is responsible for the costs associated with organ donation.
Q:
Can a liver transplant recipient contact the family of the person whose organ was received?
A:
Organ donation and transplant can be very emotional, as you would imagine. Patients who receive an organ are encouraged to write a note of appreciation to the donor’s family; the note and response are handled through the Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) involved in the case. Guidelines for writing can be found on the New England Organ Bank (NEOB) website under Donor Families.
The OPO will remove all “identifiers” in the note before delivering it to the donor family. The donor family can then respond to the recipient if they wish—again, through the OPO. Confidentiality is maintained between the donor family and recipient until both parties express the willingness or desire to communicate directly and/or meet.
At that time, a Consent and General Release form must be signed by both the donor’s family and the recipient. Please note, some families wish to remain anonymous indefinitely. NEOB will alert the recipient or transplant coordinator if this situation arises, and will hold the letter on file in the event the donor family decides to accept correspondence in the future.
Q:
If there is constantly a shortage of organs, what is being done to encourage and promote more organ donors nationwide? I didn’t even get asked when I was issued my drivers license or even when I renewed in my early 30’s, so I would imagine there is a great deal of education that needs to be done around this to inspire people to become donors.
A:
There is a need, indeed, for more public education! In our area, we’re working with NEOB to highlight the issue and to increase donations at our center. For the past five years we have been honored with the distinguished Medal of Honor from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is a tribute to the generosity of the donor families we’ve been privileged to work with. (More than 150 organs were donated by UMass Memorial families in the last two years alone.)
Even efforts like this Facebook Ask the Expert session are helpful, and April is Organ Donor Awareness Month, so you’ll be hearing more from us very soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to register as a donor, talk to friends and family about your wishes, and to tell THEM to register as a donor.
Exclusive Health Care Provider for the Worcester Red Sox.