Organ Donation
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What Can Be Donated
Up to 25 different organs and tissues can be donated for transplantation.Transplantable organs include the heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas, and small intestines.
Transplantable tissues include blood, blood vessels, bones, bone marrow, cartilage, connective tissues, eyes, heart valves, and skin.
Organ donation: Don't let these myths confuse you
Unsure about donating organs for transplant? Don't let misinformation keep you from saving lives.By Mayo Clinic Staff
It can be hard to think about what's going to happen to your body after you die, let alone donating your organs and tissue. But being an organ donor is a generous and worthwhile decision that can be a lifesaver. If you've never considered organ donation or delayed becoming a donor because of possibly inaccurate information, here are answers to some common organ donation myths and concerns.
Myth: If I agree to donate my organs, the hospital staff won't work as hard to save my life.
Fact: When you go to the hospital for treatment, doctors focus on saving your life — not somebody else's. You'll be seen by a doctor whose specialty most closely matches your particular emergency.
Myth: Maybe I won't really be dead when they sign my death certificate.
Fact: Although it's a popular topic in the tabloids, in reality, people don't start to wiggle their toes after they're declared dead. In fact, people who have agreed to organ donation are given more tests (at no charge to their families) to determine that they're truly dead than are those who haven't agreed to organ donation.
Myth: Organ donation is against my religion.
Fact: Organ donation is consistent with the beliefs of most major religions. This includes Roman Catholicism, Islam, most branches of Judaism and most Protestant faiths. If you're unsure of or uncomfortable with your faith's position on donation, ask a member of your clergy.
Myth: I'm under age 18. I'm too young to make this decision.
Fact: That's true, in a legal sense. But your parents can authorize this decision. You can express to your parents your wish to donate, and your parents can give their consent knowing that it's what you wanted. Children, too, are in need of organ transplants, and they usually need organs smaller than those an adult can provide.
Myth: An open-casket funeral isn't an option for people who have donated organs or tissues.
Fact: Organ and tissue donation doesn't interfere with having an open-casket funeral. The donor's body is clothed for burial, so there are no visible signs of organ or tissue donation. For bone donation, a rod is inserted where bone is removed. With skin donation, a very thin layer of skin similar to a sunburn peel is taken from the donor's back. Because the donor is clothed and lying on his or her back in the casket, no one can see any difference.
Myth: I'm too old to donate. Nobody would want my organs.
Fact: There's no defined cutoff age for donating organs. The decision to use your organs is based on strict medical criteria, not age. Don't disqualify yourself prematurely. Let the doctors decide at your time of death whether your organs and tissues are suitable for transplantation.
Myth: I'm not in the best of health. Nobody would want my organs or tissues.
Fact: Very few medical conditions automatically disqualify you from donating organs. The decision to use an organ is based on strict medical criteria. It may turn out that certain organs are not suitable for transplantation, but other organs and tissues may be fine. Don't disqualify yourself prematurely. Only medical professionals at the time of your death can determine whether your organs are suitable for transplantation.
Myth: I'd like to donate one of my kidneys now, but I wouldn't be allowed to do that unless one of my family members is in need.
Fact: While that used to be the case, it isn't any longer. Whether it's a distant family member, friend or complete stranger you want to help, you can donate a kidney through certain transplant centers. If you decide to become a living donor, you will undergo extensive questioning to ensure that you are aware of the risks and that your decision to donate isn't based on financial gain. You will also undergo testing to determine if your kidneys are in good shape and whether you can live a healthy life with just one kidney.
Myth: Rich and famous people go to the top of the list when they need a donor organ.
Fact: The rich and famous aren't given priority when it comes to allocating organs. It may seem that way because of the amount of publicity generated when celebrities receive a transplant, but they are treated no differently from anyone else. The reality is that celebrity and financial status are not considered in organ allocation.
Myth: My family will be charged if I donate my organs.
Fact: The organ donor's family is never charged for donating. The family is charged for the cost of all final efforts to save your life, and those costs are sometimes misinterpreted as costs related to organ donation. Costs for organ removal go to the transplant recipient.
Why you should consider organ donation
Now that you have the facts, you can see that being an organ donor can make a big difference, and not just to one person. By donating your organs after you die, you can save or improve as many as 50 lives. And many families say that knowing their loved one helped save other lives helped them cope with their loss.It's especially important to consider becoming an organ donor if you belong to an ethnic minority. Minorities including African-Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and Hispanics are more likely than whites to have certain chronic conditions that affect the kidney, heart, lung, pancreas and liver. Certain blood types are more prevalent in ethnic minority populations. Because matching blood type is usually necessary for transplants, the need for minority donor organs is especially high.
Ten uses for your body after you die
By
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent
October
28, 2010 -- Updated 1221 GMT (2021 HKT)
1. Donate your organs
Nineteen people die every day waiting for an organ such as a kidney, heart, lung, liver or pancreas. Learn about organ donation, sign an organ donor card, tell your family your wishes, and don't be misled by myths about organ donation. If you like, you can donate some organs but not others.
2. Donate your tissue
Your bones, ligaments, heart valves and corneas might not be of use to you in the hereafter, but they can certainly help someone else. Learn about tissue donation, sign a card, and again, tell your family members you've done this so they won't be surprised when the time comes. As with organs, you can specify what types of tissues you'd like to donate.
3. Will your body to a university
Help a future doctor learn about the human body by becoming a cadaver dissected by first-year medical students. A state-by-state list of medical schools can get you started. Be sure to ask exactly what will happen to your body. While you might be used for dissection, you could be used for other purposes within the school, and you might not have much control.
Here's an interesting conversation about the respect shown by students to their cadavers.
4. Help doctors practice their skills
If you'd prefer to be worked on by folks with more experience, actual, not future, doctors can learn from your body. At the Medical Education and Research Institute in Memphis, Tennessee, doctors brush up on their skills and learn new techniques; it's the training facility for organizations such as the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the North American Skull Base Society and the International Spinal Injection Society.
Doctors get to practice (and possibly make mistakes on) the dead rather than the living. In return, the institute provides for transportation for your body to Memphis, pays for cremation once the work is done and returns the ashes to your family (or, if you prefer, to an interment facility in Memphis).
If you like the idea, you can fill out a donor form. If you'd prefer to first see where your body's headed, the institute welcomes visitors.
5. Leave your body to "the body farm"
Did you ever wonder how, on TV shows, detectives know the time of death just by examining the body? Cops can thank the folks at the University of Tennessee's Forensic Anthropology Center for helping them figure it out. "The body farm," as it's known, has "650 skeletons and growing" scattered over 2.5 acres in Knoxville, according to its website. Researchers and students study bodies in varying stages of decay to help anthropologists and law enforcement officials answer important questions, such as body identification and time of death analysis. (For a fascinating account of a visit to the center, see Mary Roach's book "Stiff.")
If you want to become one of those skeletons after you die, you're in luck, as they make donation pretty easy at the Body Farm. Get their Body Donation Packet, fill out their Body Donation Document and complete the biological questionnaire. They'll want a photo of you to help them learn more about "facial reconstruction and photographic superimposition as a means for identifying unknown individuals," according to the center's website.
If you live in Tennessee and within 200 miles of Knoxville, you're really in luck, because they'll take care of all the costs. If not, your family will be responsible for arranging transportation to the center.
Once they're done with you at the Body Farm, your family doesn't get your remains back, so if that's important to you, this isn't your best option.
6. Become a crash test cadaver
Plastic crash test dummies are all well and good, but there's nothing like a real human body to simulate what happens in a car crash. You can will your body to the Wayne State University School of Medicine to become a crash test cadaver by filling out its Body Bequest Form. The form is for donation to the university, but "if a person specifically requests that their body be used in safety testing that is ongoing at the Bio-Mechanics lab, then we would honor that wish," according to an e-mail from Barbara Rosso-Norgan, the school's mortuary supervisor.
7. Give your body to a broker
We don't mean a stockbroker; we mean a body broker, who will take your parts and get them to scientists who will use them for research, training and education.
There are several groups in this business, including Science Care, Anatomy Gifts Registry and BioGift Anatomical.
Generally speaking, here's the upside of these groups: They pay to have your body transported to their facility, and with the parts that are not used in research, they pay for cremation and to have the ashes returned to your family (some will, if you prefer, distribute them at sea). This can save your family a lot of money.
The downside: You don't know where your parts will go. "We don't guarantee that we can use the body in any specific research program, and that's because our research is always changing," said Kristin Dorn, community relations manager at Science Care. "Your intent is to donate to science, not a specific research project."
Some brokers will allow you to say what areas you'd prefer your parts not go to. If this is important to you, find the broker who offers this option. "If someone is ready to donate their body to science, they will definitely need to do some research," Dorn said.
8. Send your body on tour
If you've been to the "Body Worlds" exhibit, you know what plastination is: a process of posing and hardening a body so it appears life-like.
You, too, could become one of these bodies on display by donating to the Institute for Plastination. If you live in the United States or Canada, your body will be embalmed on your own continent and then shipped to Germany, where technicians will perform the plastination process. They'll remove fat and water, "impregnate" your corpse with rubber silicone and position it into a frozen pose (you might be, say, running or sitting cross-legged or performing ballet or perhaps riding a horse). Your body is then hardened into that position with gas, light or heat. The entire process takes about a year, according to the group's website.
Your family pays to get your body to the embalming location, and the Institute for Plastination incurs the shipping costs to Germany.
There are rules about donation. You can be old, and you can be an organ donor, but if you died in a violent manner, it might not work out, as your body must be "largely intact" in order to donate, according to the institute's website.
Also, there's no guarantee your body will end up in one of the five exhibits. Some plastinated bodies are sent to medical schools and training programs, and you don't get to decide the destination of your corpse, according to Georgina Gomez, the institute's director of development.
If you're interested in going on tour and you live in North America, read the Guide to Donors and fill out the Donor Consent Form. There are also forms for European donors.
9. Become a skeleton
Researchers from around the world visit the extensive skeleton collection at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico.
Here's some information and the legal donor permission form and a donor information form.
The ground rules: Your family pays to get your body to the museum's facility in Albuquerque, and your remains (besides your bones, of course) get cremated and disposed of; they don't go back to your family. Researchers who want to work with the skeletons have to apply to the museum's Laboratory of Human Osteology; the skeletons are not put on display for anyone at the museum to see.
If you'd like to be put on display, see below.
10. Be on display at a museum
Like Bazzel, you can donate parts of your body to the Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
If you do so, you'll be a part of a pretty rarified group. Anna Dhody, the museum's curator since 2004, has received only three inquiries about donation after death, including Bazzel's.
"One woman contacted me and said, 'I have a 120-degree curvature of my spine. Would you like it when I'm done with it?' and I said, 'Yes, please,' " Dhody recalled.
Although the museum is particularly interested in bodies with abnormalities, it'll also consider taking your remains even if there's nothing particularly pathological about them. Either way, your family will have to foot the bill to get you to Philly.
To learn more, send an e-mail to info@collegeofphysicians.org.
CNN's John Bonifield and Renea Lyon contributed to this report.
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