Intended for healthcare professionals

Career Focus

THIS WEEK

BMJ 2004; 329 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7458.s23 (Published 17 July 2004) Cite this as: BMJ 2004;329:s23
  1. Rhona MacDonald, Editor of Career Focus
  1. careerfocus{at}bmj.com

Be prepared to be bombarded with some statistics. According to the UK Transplant website (www.uktransplant.org.uk), “between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2004, the highest number of organ transplants ever recorded—2,863—was carried out, thanks to the generosity of 1239 donors; organs from 771 people who died were used to save or dramatically improve many people's lives through 2396 transplants; the highest number of patients for 14 years received a kidney only transplant, with living donation now representing one in four of all kidney only transplants. A further 2365 people had their sight restored through a cornea transplant—the highest number for six years; a 20% increase in non-heartbeating donation meant that more people than ever received a transplant from these donors; 147 people received lung only transplants, the highest number ever and more than 860 000 people added their names to the NHS Organ Donor Register” (which now includes almost 11.5 million people).

Although this last figure sounds good, there is still a shortage of donors, which means that those who perform the surgery have to come to terms with making potential life or death decisions about who is put on the transplant waiting lists. Hardly surprising, then, that a career in transplant surgery, although rewarding, is ethically challenging (p 23).

Being willing to donate body parts is one way to dramatically help others but so is giving your time, energy, and skills. For example, Samshudin Suleman and colleagues have gone to Tajikistan for three weeks a year for three years to help a struggling hospital (p 27). More information about their projects and achievements are on web extra.

Chris Manning used a sabbatical to set up Primary Care in Mental Health Education (PriMHE) to help primary healthcare professionals deliver high standards of mental health care (p 28).