Organ donor?

[Faram]

I don’t and it is because I do not trust people and I have a question that noone has answered to my satisfaction.

The basis:

I am lying in a hospital in a critical state.

I will die without treatment but with treatment I will live.

Now someone of importance is lying in a hospital much in the same way but that one can only live with an organ donation and I am compatible as a donor.

If I donate I will die but the other one will live and vice versa.

What guarantee do I have that I will receive the best possible treatment and not be “allowed” to die so that the other one can live.

Now I know that this is not a good line of thought and very far fetched but I make my living on being suspicious so that has affected me in other ways.

[Ace Pace]

I can't become a doner at my age, but I'll sign up when I can, at this rate, healthy livers might become rare here.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I used to donate blood, but since I now have to inject myself daily, I am considered at risk.....

actually I had fun the last time I donated blood

have you ever had sex with anyone who uses intervienius drugs, do you use intervienus drugs.
answer: My girlfriend's diabetic. maam....

[InnerBrat]

I am lying in a hospital in a critical state.

I will die without treatment but with treatment I will live.

Now someone of importance is lying in a hospital much in the same way but that one can only live with an organ donation and I am compatible as a donor.

If I donate I will die but the other one will live and vice versa.

What guarantee do I have that I will receive the best possible treatment and not be “allowed” to die so that the other one can live.

Now I know that this is not a good line of thought and very far fetched but I make my living on being suspicious so that has affected me in other ways.

have you weighed up the chances of this happening against the chances that you might die naturally and actually save someone's life? (lives - as more than one organ can be harvested)

Do you believe that they'd check your compatibility with the other critically ill person before either of you dies?

What if that person dies before you, but thought along the same lines and due to a lack of other donors, their inaction on registering causes you to die?

[Tsyroc]

Having grown very cynical about people in general some of the problems I have with donating organs have to do with whether the people really deserve the second chance.

When two out of the three members of Crosby, Stills and Nash get liver transplants after frying their livers I have to wonder about the other people who may have been able to use those organs and had not been such an active participant in the distruction of their original liver. It also makes me concerned that being rich means you can jump to the top of the donor list.

[Sir Sirius]

Are you an organ donor? Why or (more interestingly) why not?

Yes.

And if you're from outside the U.S. and use a different system for determining who's a donor and who's not, please ed-joo-muh-cate me.

In Finland you carry around an Organ Donor card that identifies you as an organ donor. The cards are distributed for free and can be ordered from the net. Infact I just got myself a new one last week, my previous card was getting a little worn out.

Lahja Elämälle (Gift to Life in English) foundation distributes the cards, among others.

[Tsyroc]

My uncle (an M.D.) told me once that the docs decide when you're too far to bring back and then call it; sometimes a bit too soon if you've got that organ doner option checked.

Just make sure that you're on good terms with your family because I routinely see patient's go through multiple long code situations because the family insists / isn't ready to give up yet. In most of these instances it's just dragging things out but ocassionally the person eventually recovers.

Even if your family isn't present there still usually a minimum amount of time that the code team has to try to revive you.

Most of the time when we see orders for organ donation the person is relatively young and it's pretty obvious that they are never going to wake up (ie they are brain dead).

[salm]

i love the way it´s in the states. you only have to check a box on a card which almost everybody recieves sooner or later.
here it sucks. i had to get mine at a doctor. of course you think that you get the card the next time you´re at a doctor anyways. but of course you forget. sometimes you don´t forget but then the cards at this particular doctor you´re visiting are usually all gone. it took me ages to get a doners card.
they need to change it here, too, and put it on the drivers licence or even better on the personal ID card, which everybody older than 15 is required to carry at all times.

[jenat-lai]

I am a donor now. I talked to my parents before my Learners liscence and ticked no. I talked to my girl Elli before getting my full liscence and ticked yes. Elli has also ticked yes. We both figure, once where dead, where dead. all those bits that might still work, if they can save someone else's life, are better off in them than a rotting corpse.

[Executor32]

I am, but I also kinda like Chris Rock's take on organ donation:

Organ doning is for people who have no faith at all. What if they find a way to bring you back from the dead, and now you don't got no eyes? 'Ain't this a bitch? Back from the dead and I can't see shit! Mom, I'm back! Mama, where my eyes? You gave 'em to a kid in Idaho? Now I gotta go kill him to get my eyes back?!

[Sir Sirius]

Organ doning is for people who have no faith at all. What if they find a way to bring you back from the dead, and now you don't got no eyes? 'Ain't this a bitch? Back from the dead and I can't see shit! Mom, I'm back! Mama, where my eyes? You gave 'em to a kid in Idaho? Now I gotta go kill him to get my eyes back?!

If they have learned how to mend my brain after it has been decomposing for centuries I'm fairly optimistic that they will be able build me new eyes.

[Zaia]

I find it rather interesting that some people think that being an organ donor means you get shafted if you find yourself on the operating table. Doctors do what they can to save the people who are in need of medical help right in front of them. They generally don't snatch up your innards and pass them over to the person in the next bed, you know. The odds that the person who is next on the list for kidney transplants (for instance) happens to be in your state, your city, your hospital, and your hospital room is quite unlikely. Usually the organs get harvested, frozen, and then are flown to specialty transplant hospitals, where doctors who are (most likely) not at all affiliated with your doctors perform the transplant surgery. That makes the idea of a conspiracy somewhat difficult to comprehend, in my opinion.

There's also no guarantee that the transplant operations are going to work, so why would a doctor give up on you to cut you up and mail bits of you across the country so that they may or may not actually save a life, if that same doctor could patch you right up and send you on your way? Doesn't make sense; sounds like general paranoia to me.

[Executor32]

Organ doning is for people who have no faith at all. What if they find a way to bring you back from the dead, and now you don't got no eyes? 'Ain't this a bitch? Back from the dead and I can't see shit! Mom, I'm back! Mama, where my eyes? You gave 'em to a kid in Idaho? Now I gotta go kill him to get my eyes back?!

If they have learned how to mend my brain after it has been decomposing for centuries I'm fairly optimistic that they will be able build me new eyes.

I never said it was realistic, I just thought it was funny.

[Tsyroc]

i love the way it´s in the states. you only have to check a box on a card which almost everybody recieves sooner or later.
here it sucks. i had to get mine at a doctor. of course you think that you get the card the next time you´re at a doctor anyways. but of course you forget. sometimes you don´t forget but then the cards at this particular doctor you´re visiting are usually all gone. it took me ages to get a doners card.
they need to change it here, too, and put it on the drivers licence or even better on the personal ID card, which everybody older than 15 is required to carry at all times.

It's not really as simple as it seems. Deciding to have "Organ Donor" on your license doesn't put you on any organ donor lists it's really there so if you're seriously injured in an accident and it is clear that you are going to die that the emergency crews on the scene will be able to tell that you had wished to be an organ donor and take appropriate steps. It might come into play in the hosptial as well but I think in most cases your next of kin could probably overrule the checked box on a driver's license.

Now, if you have it in legal document (will, or living will) they probably wouldn't be able to easilly fight that one.

I

[YT300000]

No, I'm not. Not even posthumously (which would violate the way I want to die*, I want to be completely gone)

* Cremated, and have all my ashes stuck in a barrel of nitroglycerin which will be shot

Um, first of all I hope you're dead before you get cremated

Yes, that would be preferable.

and second of all, I believe (though I'm not positive) they can remove your organs and then cremate the rest of the body, which would leave your memorial service-type-thing unmarred.

Not quite. I want to be completely gone. Not a physical trace left. I'm just greedy that way.

Oh, you edited your post while I was typing mine. Hmph.

[Zaia]

Out of curiousity, since Canada's healthcare system is better than ours here in Los Estados Unidos, how does the donation registry work there? Do you also have that information on your license, or is there a card, or something else?

YT300000: One last to you, damnit.

[Icehawk]

I know it obviously doesnt matter when your finally dead, but I just have an uncomfortable feeling with it anyways for whatever reason.

Personally, I would prefer that we invest in finding ways to grow our own replacement organs from our own genetic/stemcell material should we need them. Everyone would be happy that way and you wouldnt have to worry about incompatability.

[Sarevok]

I am too young to be an organ donor. But when I am old enough I might sign up.

[CRUCIBLE]

No, i am not and wont be.

Thats because i am an egoistic asshole, who wants EVERY possibility covered (resurrection , necromancy , wholeness of soul etc.).

Call me a lunatic, but hey, if you you dont at least try to think/plan ahead, you dont deserve it.

And yep, i am an atheist. But that doesnt mean that i want a spiritual link left behind (lungs, heart,whatever), that could bind me to this hell and denies me access to the next, more challenging hell .

Oh, and did i mentioned that i am egoistic?

If you die, you die. Prepare for it ahead of time.

[Lord Pounder]

I don't have a license. I hate the thought of driving, however i am a registered organ donor. I've known too many people who've recieved life saving operations, besides i'd be dead and the body would be an empty vessel, donating may well ensure that last bit of good karma needed.