The Ethics Of Artificial Heart Transplants

A prosthetic device in substitution of a heart that is usually used to create more time of life until a transplant can be performed, also known as an artificial heart. An artificial heart creates more time to a heart transplant but it can also be a permanent substitution of the biological one. An artificial heart is very hard to receive, a patient must seriously be ill or about to die before it can even be considered. It is a very costly procedure and the whole transplant itself is very complicated and intense on the body. The doctors must spend many hours of preparation before the surgery including preparing the patient with knowledge about the transplant, Life after can have a major effect on the patient and the patients family, it will certainly make everyday life harder. Is an artificial heart transplant ethical? …show more content…
A patient must be, “At risk of imminent death from biventricular failure, have no other medical or surgical treatment options, eligible for heart transplantation, have sufficient space in the chest cavity to accommodate the device. Generally this includes patients who have a body surface area ≥ 1.7m2” (TOTAL ARTIFICIAL HEART). An artificial heart transplant is suggested by a heart surgeon when the patient has less than 30 days to live. In order for your body to be able to receive the plastic and metal look alike, the patients organs must be very healthy meaning they can not be failing. The transplant can bridge time to an actual heart transplant, so the doctors must carefully consider the possible outcome. If it is highly unlikely the patient will be able to find a match in order to get a donor heart transplant, a TAH might not be the best thing for the patient. It is very rare a TAH-t will be considered as a long term heart. This is because if the batteries die, the patient will have no heart functions and