Hal Stevens

If you or someone you know is in need of an organ donation or transplant, it’s necessary to be placed on a national “waiting list.”

The green awareness ribbon is an international symbol of support for organ and tissue donation.

If you are not comfortable with the concept of organ donation because you wish to keep your body or the body of a loved one in tact, or if you are not eligible for organ donation for whatever reason, but still wish to contribute something in death, you might consider donating your body to a medical school or institution.

Tissue donation is a more common option for people wishing to be donors, as there are very few medical reasons (other than having a communicable disease, such as HIV or hepatitis) a person would not be eligible to donate tissue.

When a deceased organ donor is identified, a transplant coordinator from an organ procurement organization accesses the UNet system and enters necessary medical information about the donor.

To protect the person receiving an organ, various health and safety tests are conducted. Because an organ transplant requires immune suppression, it is important that the organ not be infected with a disease that could harm the recipient.

Despite continuing efforts at public education, misconceptions and inaccuracies about donation persist.

Organ Donation is a very touchy subject. As we see, all things related to the medical or mortuary fields, a lot of people are under general misconceptions having heard rumors or urban legends which they hold to be true.

Families of individuals who decide to donate their organs often find that it helps them through their grieving process. They receive great comfort from the knowledge that something positive came from the death of their loved one.

We are, rightfully so, a species which is very much focused on living. We look at each day as a new opportunity. Our eyes are always set on tomorrow. So, the idea of the end of our lives is, of course, not one on which we want to dwell.