Organ Donation Speech

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One organ donor has the potential to save eight lives. An organ donor is someone who decides to allow doctors to harvest their organs after they are medically pronounced brain dead, or if they are a match for someone while living, and wish to give their organ to that person, and therefore allow their organs to be used in transplantation, ultimately giving someone else the chance to live. The organs that can be donated are the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, intestines, and, the most often needed, the kidneys. Some organs can be given from a living donor, such as the kidneys and liver. (Harris, 2002) The first transplant ever performed was a skin transplant, in 1869, performed by Jacques-Louis Reverdin, a well-known Swiss surgeon. In 1990, Dr.…show more content…
Using the example of the heart transplant, blood pressure, oxygen levels, breathing rate, various other pressure readings, and your electrocardiogram (ECG) will be closely monitored. A breathing tube is inserted for all transplant patients, until the patient is able to breathe on their own, after the transplant. After the tube is removed, a nurse has to help the patient cough and take deep breaths every two hours, in order to keep the risk of pneumonia down. A tube is placed into your nose that goes into your stomach to take out any air that is consumed, which also means you cannot eat or drink until this tube can be taken out. Depending on the transplant, certain blood tests will be taken regularly to certify that the body is functioning normally, and that the organ that has been implanted into the body is doing well. Medications will be provided to the patient to ensure that the organ will not be rejected by the body, because it is foreign matter. Regular biopsies will be scheduled for this reason, also. These medications will need to be taken from that day, on. (Heart Transplant Surgery,…show more content…
Only three in 1,000 people die in a manner that their organs can be harvested and used in an organ transplant, hence why it is important for as many people as possible to donate (Organ Donation Statistics, n.d.). Being stuck on the organ transplant waiting list can be a long and grueling process. To be put on the list for an organ from a cadaverous donor, one must register to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), run by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). First, a transplant team must be acquired for the patient. Once this is done, the team, and other medical professionals at the hospital will assess the patient’s physical and mental capability to give up past and/or present bad habits, and make sure they are able to make it through the recovery process. Then, if the evaluation goes well, the UNOS Organ Center, in Richmond, Virginia, is called, and the patient is placed on the national waiting list. People can be on the waiting list for months, or even years before they get one, and often times, they die before they can get one. In order for someone to get an organ, things like blood type and tissue type have to be a match between the two people. Once the transplant team decides that the organ is good for the person, they and the surgeons take over the surgical process. (Harris,
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