The human body; it starts off as a single cell, and grows into a complex machine made of seventy eight distinct organs, two hundred and six bones, and millions of nerves that all communicate with each other to regulate body processes and keep the machine alive and healthy. This seemingly perfect system undergoes countless attacks every day, and manages to recover from most, although occasionally, it can not. Diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis and Coronary Artery Disease, or abnormalities and defects such as biliary atresia, can all disrupt the function of human organs (“Transplant Australia”, n.d ). Thankfully, through radical advancements in modern medicine, organ transplants are a safe and highly viable option to restore the human body’s perfect harmony. No matter the reason for organ failure, once it occurs, the patient’s journey to receiving a new organ begins. Through the matching of organs, the process and the complications that come with it, the ethical issues, and trials of new advancements, the journey is a long one.
Organ donations can result from either living or deceased patients. Living transplants are often from one family member to another, and include kidney, parts of lungs and livers, small bowel and some tissue donations (“Organ Transplant-Overview”, n.d.). Donations from deceased patients occur after the donor has been classified as neurologically dead, and thus the organs are available for transplant to patients on the donor list. Neurological death is the accumulation of blood or fluid in the brain cavity, increasing inter cranial pressure and limiting the flow of oxygen to the brain (Olson, 2002). Once the brain has lost its supply of oxygen, it dies. Unlike other organs, such as the heart, the brain cannot...
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Stiller, C. R., & Stiller, B. (1990). Lifegifts: The Real Story of Organ Transplants. Toronto, Canada: Stoddart.
Suchetka, D. (2012, August 19). 'Ghost heart,' A Framework for Growing New Human Hearts, Could Be Answer for Thousands Waiting for New Heart. cleveland.com. Retrieved from http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2012/08/ghost_heart_a_framework_for_gr.html
Support for Families. (n.d.). Trillium Gift of Life Network. Retrieved from http://www.giftoflife.on.ca/en/donorsupport.htm
Transplant Australia. (n.d.). Transplant AU. Retrieved from http://www.transplant.org.au/Why-people-need-transplants.html
When viewing organ donation from a moral standpoint we come across many different views depending on the ethical theory. The controversy lies between what is the underlying value and what act is right or wrong. Deciding what is best for both parties and acting out of virtue and not selfishness is another debatable belief. Viewing Kant and Utilitarianism theories we can determine what they would have thought on organ donation. Although it seems judicious, there are professionals who seek the attention to be famous and the first to accomplish something. Although we are responsible for ourselves and our children, the motives of a professional can seem genuine when we are in desperate times which in fact are the opposite. When faced with a decision about our or our children’s life and well being we may be a little naïve. The decisions the patients who were essentially guinea pigs for the first transplants and organ donation saw no other options since they were dying anyways. Although these doctors saw this as an opportunity to be the first one to do this and be famous they also helped further our medical technology. The debate is if they did it with all good ethical reasoning. Of course they had to do it on someone and preying upon the sick and dying was their only choice. Therefore we are responsible for our own health but when it is compromised the decisions we make can also be compromised.
Attention Getter: A week and a half ago, there was a news article reporting that Dr. Bud Frazier was being honored for performing the most heart transplants nationwide. Specifically, he performed 1,500 heart transplants and implanted 1,000 left ventricular assist devices. He is also the man who invented the device. Where did the remarkable research and advances begin for organ transplants in human beings, and how did it make progress?
At the beginning of her argument, Satel claims that the current transplant list systems are ineffective, and are causing a shortage of organs availability, thereby allowing countless patients to suffer. At first, she makes an invali...
Wolfe, R., Merion, R., Roys, E., & Port, F. (2009). Trends in Organ Donation and Transplantation in the United States, 1998-2007. American Journal of Transplantation , 9, 869-878.
There are two main types of organ donation that help improve the condition of sick people so that they can survive to be with loved ones. The first type of organ donation is living donation. That’s when a living person makes the decision to donate their organ to someone they know or to someone who needs it. The other main type of organ donation is when the dies and has healthy enough organs to donate them to someone else. Heart, lung, Skin and my other body parts are all able to be donate to help save someone’s life. The article “About Living Donation” says “The donor candidate is carefully evaluated by lab tests, a physical examination, and a psychosocial examination to
When someone is in need of a transplant, there are several factors that are looked at in deciding whether or not the patient will be placed on the transplant list. Patients receive points for medical need, tissue type and time on the waiting list. Doctors then use a computer algorithm to decide who gets the organs available. Typically, one’s overall health, age, ability to comply with the regimen of anti-rejection drugs and a strong support system also comes into the decision process as well. Geographical location of the donor organ is also very important in the decision making process. (Whitford, 2005) Due to the shortage of organs, not all on the list get the organs they need. If people would get past their fears with regards to stem cell research, we could grow perfectly viable h...
I am very interested in the topic of Organ transplantation. I am interested in biology and the process of surgeries. What intrigues me is the process of saving someone’s life in such a dramatic and complicated process. My dad happens to be a doctor and in his training he cut open a human body to see for himself the autonomy of the body. So being interested in the field of medicine is in my blood. Modern technology helps many people and saves people around the globe. However even with modern technologies that progress mankind, bio medical and ethical dilemmas emerge. And ultimately life falls into the hands of the rabbis, lawmakers and philosophical thinkers.
Every year, the need for new organs in organ transplants becomes more apparent. “I recognized fairly early that the biggest problem facing me as a surgeon was the shortage of organs. I’ve devoted my professional life to solving that problem,” Vacanti said (Arnst and Carey 60). Approximately eight million people in the United States undergo surgery annually to correct organ failure (Arnst and Carey 61). While these patients wait for surgery and others wait on the transplant list, their medical expenses reach up to $400 billion. These expenses count for almost one-half of American heath-care bills. Nearly four...
How To Save A Life: The Importance of Organ Donation Like an argumentative essay, the objective of a visual argument is to take a position on a message or issue and convey that message to a desired audience. This is accomplished for a variety of reasons: to sell a product, refute another argument or position, or raise awareness on a subject. Visual arguments are effective because as the timeless idiom goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. The mission of this visual argument by France ADOT is to present the overarching thesis that thousands of people owe their lives to organ donors, but instead of creating a page full of words, they used powerful imagery and text that appeals to human empathy in order to generate interest and attain their goals. The French Federation des Associations pour le Don d’ Organes et de Tissus hommes (ADOT) is an organization within France that advocates for more organ donations and research throughout France and the world.
Oz (New York Heart Transplant surgeon) says “they (the families of the brain dead patient) can’t deal with the fear, however irrational, that the true end of their loved one will come when the heart is removed” (Dr. Oz, 7). This premise leads up to the main claim since it states why there aren’t enough donors in the world and why there is a long transplant waiting list too. Also it helps explain that even though the patient is brain dead, you should still treat them as a patient and have some
Nadiminti, H. (2005) Organ Transplantation: A dream of the past, a reality of the present, an ethical Challenge for the future. Retrieved February 12, 2014 from http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2005/09/fred1-0509.html
Organ transplantation is apperceived as one of the most prehending achievements for preserving life in medical history. This procedure provides a means of giving life to patience’s who suffer from terminal organ failure, which requires the participation of individuals; living or deceased, to donate their organs for the more preponderant good of society.
No medical procedure is perfect, and when it comes to organ transplants, perfection is still far on the horizon. Our bodies are designed to be efficient and productive, yet consistently challenged and changing. In the case of organ transplants from donor to recipient, problems are almost always sure to arise. Hyperacute, acute, and chronic graft rejections are defined as the three possible negative outcomes of the transplant of a human organ. A disease defined as graft-versus-host-disease characterizes other problematic situations arising from human transplantation. Human transplantation is far from perfect, and the ever-increasing research behind xenotransplantation is starting to give hope to a more efficient and readily available option.
One of the most important and prevalent issues in healthcare discussed nowadays is the concern of the organ donation shortage. As the topic of organ donation shortages continues to be a growing problem, the government and many hospitals are also increasingly trying to find ways to improve the number of organ donations. In the United States alone, at least 6000 patients die each year while on waiting lists for new organs (Petersen & Lippert-Rasmussen, 2011). Although thousands of transplant candidates die from end-stage diseases of vital organs while waiting for a suitable organ, only a fraction of eligible organ donors actually donate. Hence, the stark discrepancy in transplantable organ supply and demand is one of the reasons that exacerbate this organ donation shortage (Parker, Winslade, & Paine, 2002). In the past, many people sought the supply of transplantable organs from cadaver donors. However, when many ethical issues arose about how to determine whether someone is truly dead by either cardiopulmonary or neurological conditions (Tong, 2007), many healthcare professionals and transplant candidates switched their focus on obtaining transplantable organs from living donors instead. As a result, in 2001, the number of living donors surpassed the number of cadaver donors for the first time (Tong, 2007).
In this paper I will be using the normative theory of utilitarianism as the best defensible approach to increase organ donations. Utilitarianism is a theory that seeks to increase the greatest good for the greatest amount of people (Pense2007, 61). The utilitarian theory is the best approach because it maximizes adult organ donations (which are the greater good) so that the number of lives saved would increase along with the quality of life, and also saves money and time.