Living Renal Donation
The Benefits, Risks, Gifts, Sacrifices and Curious Events That Lead to Living Renal Donation
Kidney organ donation is a hot topic these days due to the fact that so many End-Stage Renal Failure Patients are dying while waiting for a living or deceased transplant. The big questions, should healthy adults become living kidney donors to complete strangers? Should a healthy adult family member become a living kidney donor to a friend or family member? If a loved one is an organ donor upon their death, should their wishes be fulfilled? The following will help clarify some of the questions, concerns and misnomers with living organ donation, specifically living renal donation while the medical community is divided on this topic as renal patients lose their lives waiting for a deceased donor, many lives could be saved if more people stepped forward and became living organ donors.
How can being educated highlight the need for living and deceased organ donation which will allow a longer and sustainable life for a recipient in End Stage Renal Failure? Most people are not aware that a healthy adult can donate one of their native kidneys to a family member or a stranger and still lead a happy healthy life with one kidney. This is not to say that everyone should just start giving away their kidneys, however, it does make you stop and think about becoming an organ donor should a relative or close friend be in need.
Advances in education and medicine are common similarities in the authors POV. M.D. Stegall in “A Curious Chain of Events” acknowledges that chain transplants or PKD can save certain death of renal patients on dialysis whereby granting them an allograft donor kidney bypassing the long wait on the UNOS deceased donor list. This impact of removal from UNOS also allows another potential recipient to be moved up on the UNOS list.
Alison Tierney states in “Gift or Sacrifice”, the need for further education for patients’ families with End Stage Renal Disease.
Kidney organ donation is a hot topic these days due to the fact that so many End-Stage Renal Failure Patients are dying while waiting for a living or deceased transplant. The big questions, should healthy adults become living kidney donors to complete strangers? Should a healthy adult family member become a living kidney donor to a friend or family member? If a loved one is an organ donor upon their death, should their wishes be fulfilled? The following will help clarify some of the questions, concerns and misnomers with living organ donation, specifically living renal donation while the medical community is divided on this topic as renal patients lose their lives waiting for a deceased donor, many lives could be saved if more people stepped forward and became living organ donors.
How can being educated highlight the need for living and deceased organ donation which will allow a longer and sustainable life for a recipient in End Stage Renal Failure? Most people are not aware that a healthy adult can donate one of their native kidneys to a family member or a stranger and still lead a happy healthy life with one kidney. This is not to say that everyone should just start giving away their kidneys, however, it does make you stop and think about becoming an organ donor should a relative or close friend be in need.
Advances in education and medicine are common similarities in the authors POV. M.D. Stegall in “A Curious Chain of Events” acknowledges that chain transplants or PKD can save certain death of renal patients on dialysis whereby granting them an allograft donor kidney bypassing the long wait on the UNOS deceased donor list. This impact of removal from UNOS also allows another potential recipient to be moved up on the UNOS list.
Alison Tierney states in “Gift or Sacrifice”, the need for further education for patients’ families with End Stage Renal Disease.
Cited: Ingelfinger, Julie R. “Risks and Benefits to the Living Donor.” New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 353, Issue 54 (2005): n. pag. Academic Search Web. 12 Feb. 2013 Stegall, M.D. “A Curious Chain of Events.” American Journal of Transplantation (2009): 1259-1260. Academic Search Web. 12 Feb. 2013 Tierney, Alison J. “Gift or Sacrifice?” Journal of Advanced Nursing (2007): 1254 Academic Search Web 12 Feb 2013