BMJ 1994;309:341 (30 July)

Letters

Increasing the number of organ donations

EDITOR, - "General practitioners are encouraged to record information about patients that is of dubious value," writes Richard Vautrey in a letter promoting the recording in patients' notes of their willingness to be organ donors.1 Unless his patients' willingness is based on full information such records are of dubious value and could be misleading.

One hundred and fifteen of 217 respondents to his questionnaire were willing to be organ donors "when they die." This is valueless as an opinion unless what the respondents understand by the phrase "when they die" is known. How many would equate a situation in which ventilation and full resuscitative procedures continue, residual brain activity may be present but is not looked for, and paralysing and anaesthetic drugs need to be given for surgery as consistent with their having died?

This relevant information should be made available to all potential donors and their relatives and to . . . [Full text of this article]


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