Organ Donor: Brain Dead Or Not?

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Brain Dead or Not?
Each day close to 300 people die and what makes this shocking is that currently there are 83,513 people waiting for organs to be donated. Less than 50% of the patients waiting will never receive the organs they need to survive. Each day seventeen of those people waiting for an organ, die because they do not receive a transplant. So retrieving as many organs as possible is vital to save as many patients in need of an organ as possible. The need for donors is ever increasing but many choose not to become donors for many reasons.
At the age when one receives a driver's license, he or she has to decide whether or not they want to be an organ donor. No one explains what it really means to be an organ donor, but a decision still …show more content…
Reasons a person might choose to not be an organ donor could be based on a religious belief or of the idea of loosing consent after death. Agreeing to be an organ donor is possibly one of the most important sacrifices on can make to both the individual in need of an organ and to ones society. Organ donation is viewed as a complex process and is difficult for many people and relatives of those in life threatening situations to comprehend. If someone has not chosen to be an organ donor, they leave the decision of what happens to their organs up to their relatives in the event of death or brain death. This is a challenge for their relatives because they are crippled with loosing part of their loved one. The decision is even more difficult for family members of someone who may have become brain dead, but who still has characteristics of life. The majority of organs harvested from people after death are usually from those who have been declared brain dead (Berntzen, Helene, and Ida Torunn Bjork 267). Various organizations have been raising awareness to the public in an effort to educate people to the benefits of organ donation and to increase the decision of individuals choosing to become organ donors. For example, media campaigns have been distributing stories telling about life and death situations related to organ donation cases. These actions are not …show more content…
They keep a normal body temperature, wounds continue healing, and patients can even have a fever from an infection. Research has proven that in some cases brain dead victims emit brainwaves in some cases. Most patients are not even tested for higher brain activity using an EEG. The 1968 Harvard Committee recommended that doctors use an EEG machine (a test that picks up electrical activity in one’s brain using small metal discs) to make sure patients have a flat brain wave frequency. Today the EEG focuses directly on the stalk like brain stem in charge of actions like breathing, sleeping, and walking. The EEG would alert doctors that the thinking part of the brain is still living. After some time, multiple researchers decided that the test was not necessary so it was removed from the original criteria in 1971. Researchers stated that if the brain stem is dead the higher centers of the brain are also probably dead (Teresi 416). In the
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