Learn to talk about transplants: A way to boost donations

A new report explores how to make the physician's role in organ donation more effective.

Editorial. Feb. 18, 2002.

Every organ transplant is a triumph of medical science made possible by the warm-blooded qualities of our better selves -- understanding, empathy, altruism and trust. Missed opportunities to obtain organs for transplantation -- a tragic measure of which is the more than 5,000 Americans who die each year while on the waiting list -- reflect what happens when those fine qualities aren't given the chance to come into play.

Physicians can make a major difference in this situation, for better or worse. A meeting, held last month by the AMA and the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, took medicine an important step closer to uncovering and sharing the answers about making the doctor's role in organ donation as effective as possible. Key members of the transplant community met and examined findings on physician actions and attitudes, drawn from physician focus groups on the subject.

A formal report from the meeting is now being written but already some of the themes appear clear. Physicians are often uneasy about the organ donation discussion, especially in critical situations. Many doctors are uniformed about the rules -- ethical, governmental and institutional -- that increasingly frame those discussions. Physicians are understandably concerned about conflict of interest -- how their role in the organ donation process fits with the doctor's central responsibility to act in the best interest of one's own patient. There is also the well-known tension between physicians and organ procurement personnel. [...]