Ethics

Memorandum

To: Staff and associated hospital members

From:

Subject: Decision on choosing recipients for organ donation.

This is to bring to notice of all staff a very important decision taken in regards to recipients of organ donation, a scenario that has many ethical dimensions to it, as every patient who is on the waiting list as the same rights depending on availability of organs. The task in which I have been hired to carry out is one that I most certainly do not take lightly. The decisions that I am tasked to make both in and out of surgery can and do change lives immediately. This way this decision has been made has been further elaborated below.

There has always been a great disparity between the number of individuals waiting for a donor transplant and the number of transplants available. Often, the individuals that receive these organs are given a new lease on life. Due to the extremely serious nature of these decisions and the dire consequences that may follow, each situation is examined thoroughly to determine not only what is best for the patient but who will have the best chance at a full life after receiving the donation.

The aforementioned decisions are made all the more complicated by having a very short window in which to make a choice once the organ is received due to the sporadic nature in which they are received. The organ must firstly be matched to a short list of donors that can actually receive the transplant i.e. matching tissue, size, etc. before the final decision is made. As with everything during this process the decision has to be made without hesitation because the organ has a certain window in which it can survive outside of a host’s body. At times the final decision may be deemed unpopular or unjust, but are for the best interest of a positive outcome.

Any patient who is on the organ recipient list has been prescreened to determine the suitability of that patient for transplant. The typical procedure for organ transplants...