Organ Donation: Guiding Next-of-Kin Decision-Making

Organ Donation: Guiding Next-of-Kin Decision-Making

Every day 18 people in the United States will die while awaiting a transplant. These 18 people, who are alive right now, will be dead because they could not get an organ transplant in time (United Network for Organ Sharing, 2014). There are potential donors who pass away each day who could meet the needs of people on the waiting list, but they die without leaving donor instructions. How do you feel when you have to wait for something you really, really need? What if it was something you couldn’t live without? Nearly 125,000 Americans are waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant right now (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2014). Hundreds of thousands more would benefit from a life enhancing tissue transplant. One of the people on the waiting list for an organ transplant might be someone you know. The need is constantly growing for organ donors. Organ transplantation has become a more successful and acceptable procedure in the treatment of severe illnesses. The increasing number of transplantations is possible because of breakthroughs in medical technology. But only a small portion of the population (30%) have signed up for organ donation upon their death.

In 1984, more than 7, 000 patients with end-stage renal disease received kidney transplants (Perkins, 1987). According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, in 2013 this number increased to 16,895 patients, and in 2014 5,408 kidney transplantations have already been completed. A study by Dorry L. Segev, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and colleagues revealed that in nearly 18,000 U.S. pediatric kidney transplants done between 1987 and 2012, 10-year patient and graft survival rates were 90.5% and 60.2%, respectively, after transplantation in 2001 versus 77.6% and 46.8% after transplantation in 1987 (Wickline, 2014). The list of transplant procedures being developed and advanced include bone marrow, islet tissue for...