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Author's Comment
Susan A. Bidigare, MD
Arch Fam Med. 2000;9:605.
My interest in organ donation began while working as a nurse in the intensive care unit prior to entering medical school. I found it extremely frustrating that so many people died without their family being offered the option of organ donation. To change this, I created a team of nurses called the TransLife Team, whose goal was to increase the awareness of the need for organ donation within the hospital, and to work one-on-one with the potential donor patient's family, the neurosurgeons, and the organ procurement team. The number of donors increased with this approach, and the actual process of donation became much easier. Of even more importance to me, the satisfaction that the donor families felt was even more apparent. After nearly every organ recovery, I would receive letters and phone calls from donor families thanking the team for our efforts. One father of a 17-year-old called the morning after his son's funeral. He related that the family just wanted to thank us, because were it not for their being able to achieve some good out of this situation, they didn't know how they would have coped with their son's death. Comments like this made all of our long hours worthwhile.
My efforts in promoting organ donation waned somewhat during medical school, mostly from lack of time. When it became time to do our resident research project I instantly thought of organ donation. Wouldn't it make sense to talk about organ donation with our patients long before their death, before emotions and despair intervene? A literature search showed that there was a lack of information about the role of family physicians in the promotion of organ donation during routine primary care visits. Maybe there was a project in this. Finding a faculty advisor was the next step. As Residency Program Director, Dr Aaron Ellis already had more than enough responsibilities. He readily agreed, however, to be the project advisor and furthermore volunteered to participate in the data collection, thereby increasing the number of patients and adding the further dimension of including a well-established faculty practice. Hence the project was born. We have shown that a very simple, time-effective intervention can increase our patients' commitment to organ donation when the intervention is conducted during routine office visits. Our goal is that more family physicians will begin discussing organ donation with their patients so that someday there will be enough organs to go around.
St Clair Shores, Mich
RELATED ARTICLE
Family Physicians' Role in Recruitment of Organ Donors
Susan A. Bidigare and Aaron R. Ellis
Arch Fam Med. 2000;9(7):601-605.
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