Get Your Hands Off My Organs
My husband and I have been married for ten years, and the poor guy can never win an argument. It's not allowed. In our household, the woman is always right. We agree on most things except when it comes to the issue of organ donation. I’m an organ donor, but my husband believes that being an organ donor makes an individual more vulnerable to abuse. He says that there are some sick doctors in the medical community that will kill patients in order to harvest their organs. I’ve always said that was bunk, but then I read a story in the New York Times that proves my husband's point.
A transplant surgeon is being accused of giving a patient heavy doses of morphine and Ativan to hasten a donor’s death. I gave the doctor the benefit of the doubt when I first heard about this story until I read that he is also accused of introducing Betadine into the patient’s system as a way of jumpstarting his death. The doctor’s attorney claims that nothing was done to hasten the patient’s death. Apparently, the nurses disagree. They are testifying on the behalf of the prosecution. I can only imagine what’s going to happen in court. If you were on the jury, who would you believe:
The surgeon accused of killing a patient for his organs, or.....
the patient’s nurses, who are testifying for the state?
My husband is never going to find out about this. I’m not breaking my perfect ten-year record of always being right.
posted by Mother Jones RN at 2:01 PM
8 Comments:
This is a bizarre story to say the least. I mean I am sitting here thinking about the whole betadine thing and wouldn't giving the pt that or the overdose of narcotics cause some sort of damage to any organs that could be harvested???
Are you sure your husband never reads your blog? :)
Read that this morning here. I'll vote for the angels, of course.
wow.... thanks for posting that article. very interesting read. i'm a nursing student and i would have to say that my beliefs on the topic are more towards your husband's. never as extreme as this article, but i have heard of slight biases in doctors and the extent of how far they'll go (or won't go!) to save someone who is a donor. i think a lot of personal factors here can come into play - doctors are human, too. it's just usually a lot harder than this case to monitor/enforce.
as horrible a story as that is..I don't think an isolated horror story should dissuade people from donating.
Shouldn't we be growing autologous organs from stem cells by now or something?
Of course there will be abuses. Transplantation is a big business. As a nurse, I am no longer allowed at the bedside of a grieving family to talk about this issue. An "expert" from the organ bank will be dispatched to speak with the family. Do we ever worry about people making these kind of decisions under duress, or possibly feeling pressured? Why am I no longer allowed this task?
I am not against organ transplantation. Don't get me wrong. But the whole thing opens up possibilities we do not want to consider. What about the nurse who believes in transplantation and knows that the brain-injured man on a ventilator has a nice healthy liver. Might she silence the ventilator long enough to induce a severe bradycardia? Years ago as a nurse in NICU I was asked to give graduated doses of Morphine to a frail patient. Don't think it doesn't happen.
As a nurse, I hold to the standard that the sum total of the individual is much more valuable then the "parts". I give holistic care.
Tammy
it's interesting reading your post on organ donors today....on Tuesday on the headlines of there paper was a picutre of a ogran donor recipient...he received a heart...the donor apparantly was very healthy and as a result 7 other people received organ donations from one donor....amazing....I am all for organ donation...hey I don't need it when I am gone...let someone else have it....I have been involved in what happens when patients donate their organs it is quite the process that everyone has to go through....
I just stumbled across the blog ;) I read this story myself and wondered what many in the medical community think about it.
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