Medicine is an area that continues to become more advanced everyday. With these advances people are starting to live longer because of it. Unfortunately, these advances in medicine aren’t correlating to longer lives for everyone. Specifically those in need of an organ transplant. Organ transplantations are usually necessary because the recipient’s organ has failed or has been damaged by disease/injury. Currently there are 114,990 patients waiting for a donor organ. Every 10 minutes someone is added to the national transplant waiting list, while 20 other patients die each day waiting for one ("Data | UNOS", 2018).
So how can we help put a dent in this epidemic? The only way I see a positive change happening is by changing the selection process. …show more content…
How it works is all organs are distributed on a first come, first serve basis. Meaning that patients start at the bottom of this list, and slowly work their way up. This approach makes it attractive because all patients have an equal chance of selection regardless of race, financial status, etc. However, it does not take into account the chance of survival, amount of time a patient has, nor the quality of life. The final option is customary approach. This allows physicians to decide where an organ goes based on medical criteria of a patient. Though this may seem like the winner of the four, a lot of social bias is said to come along with it. Physicians may take into account certain criteria such as age, mental illness, drug abuse, etc. thus choose not to give a healthy organ to a patient. Physicians also are making a decision without knowing the social criteria as well. Do they have a family or support group, or are they sending a patient home to handle the recovery all on their own? Yes they can ask the patient these questions, but who knows if the patient isn’t lying just so they can receive an organ (Anna,
So how can we help put a dent in this epidemic? The only way I see a positive change happening is by changing the selection process. …show more content…
How it works is all organs are distributed on a first come, first serve basis. Meaning that patients start at the bottom of this list, and slowly work their way up. This approach makes it attractive because all patients have an equal chance of selection regardless of race, financial status, etc. However, it does not take into account the chance of survival, amount of time a patient has, nor the quality of life. The final option is customary approach. This allows physicians to decide where an organ goes based on medical criteria of a patient. Though this may seem like the winner of the four, a lot of social bias is said to come along with it. Physicians may take into account certain criteria such as age, mental illness, drug abuse, etc. thus choose not to give a healthy organ to a patient. Physicians also are making a decision without knowing the social criteria as well. Do they have a family or support group, or are they sending a patient home to handle the recovery all on their own? Yes they can ask the patient these questions, but who knows if the patient isn’t lying just so they can receive an organ (Anna,