After looking at my license, I guess I am... Although I feel sorry for the poor SOB that takes my organs. I abuse the shit out of them.

lol^

I realize that should probably be in sarcasm brackets, but there are dozens of labs done to insure your organs are good for donation at the time of donation.

Scott, sounds like you have a good plan, I'm glad you're not completely dead inside ;) There are numerous levels of consciousness that I could be in where I'd like to be killed. I HATE the families that say "do everything" when it's a lost cause. It's disgusting.

Sorry y'all, the organ donation industry just doesn't allow for this. I was an EMT for 6 years and my wife is an emergency room nurse and has worked Lvl-1 trauma for years. I can promise you that nobody in emergency medicine "doesn't do everything they can" because somebody might be a donor. The way the system works doesn't allow for this.

First, the harvesting of organs from dead bodies doesn't happen all that often. It depends on the age of the body and what might still be viable. Corneas and skin and come other things... but "organs" just aren't viable shortly after the heart stops beating.

So... organs are almost always harvested from a functioning body. You are in the ER or some other medical establishment, and you are extremely fucked up... massive head injury or extreme bodily trauma that makes it a certainty that you're fucked. YOU of course are unconscious, which means that a family member or your living will determines the extent to which the medical teams will go to keep properly oxygenated blood flowing through your body. At the end, after you are good and truly brain-dead, a hospital representative may approach the decision-making family member about the possibility of organ donation. At this point, it's a virtual certainty that the patient is on very borrowed time or is permanently brain-dead. All options will be put on the table and somebody YOU TRUST or what is specifically written in your living will is the final call.

If somebody does make the call, then an organ donation company that is contracted with the hospital will be called and the process begins.

But the tabloid headline or some random soap opera episode about a doctor choosing not to save a person he knew he could save or who weighed the odds and chose to "kill" you so that 5 others could live is a fantasy.

I have heard this argument a lot, and I have yet to see any documented case of this happening.

Bravo sir. Absolutely correct, and why I don't understand the argument. Even if the donation process didn't work, I can't see what a doctor would have in the deal to let you die for someone else, and some other company get your organs. Or why he would fail to go through every measure to try and save you.

Same here. Even if there were a chance I would come out of a coma in several years, and there was only a small chance of permanent brain damage, I think I would still rather be let go. Not worth all of the extended suffering, and the mental, physical, emotional and monetary cost. I would especially hope they pull the plug if I were in a good condition for organ donation. So that while I lay in a bed drooling, pissing and shitting on myself, with a very small chance of a recovery, someone else could have my organs and have a genuine chance to return to a normal life. I've let everyone in my immediate family know my wishes on this. If they get a call that I am in the hospital, and they find me a vegetable, in a coma with a slight chance of recovery, to just let me go. I hope if the time every comes, they can fulfill my wish.

Of course if the doctors say I may come around in a few weeks, give me a little time to see what happens. But if it's one of those "he could wake up tomorrow, or never" situations... so long.

Actually you'd probably have a foley cath, so you wouldn't be pissing on yourself. And we shove a suction tube down your vent every ~30 minutes and suction out your lung gunk, so you wouldn't be drolling on yourself either. And if you had loose stools, you'd be at risk for skin break down and we'd shove what's called a dignicare up your ass:
http://www.crbard.com/uploadedImages...-dignicare.jpg

That green thing is inflated with 100cc of water to plug your anus. There's a hole in the middle to let your stools out. So there ya go, you wouldn't droll, pee, or poo on yourself, what a life!

im assuming the new guy gets the pleasure of installing that fine piece of hardware.

RNs are very controlling and protective of their patients. It's both good and bad, but they do everything they can themselves. I'm an aide, so what I can do is fairly limited, but I'm completely capable of cleaning any bodily liquids, yet I hardly do, they take pride in doing everything themselves. Most of them actually have issues delegating tasks when they're too busy.

i give you mad props for going into that career field. its a tough one that i know i personally couldnt do it

Love suctioning vented patients in front of family... They always look like they're going to flip for the 3 seconds grandmas choking, yet they don't care when her sp02's only 82%. Remember good oral hygiene cuts VAP in half.

I second Curly's comments on the RN's. If I wasn't a few months away from being an RN, I'd basically be stuck as a runner boy or unit clerk. They are super protective of their patients and for good reason.

I ride a sport bike and I'm a donor. I will NOT be a vegi tale in a bed. If I'm un-savable and can be a benefit for another then go crazy. Just freeze my head so I can maybe be a head in a jar Futurama style or plugged into a giant robot in the future.

Oh well fuck! Sign me up! Lets hope for an on the job accident today!!!

I just don't want it to be part of the decision making process. I understand what sam and others in the field are saying, but you can't unlearn the fact if operators know im a donor. I want to be brought back, not just stablized. Call it paranora, but that just makes me fele more comfortable. If that's the best they can do, and i still end up a vegetable, my family knows to donate everything; even my huge johnson.

and you all called me crazy:

Organs taken from patients that doctors were pressured to declare brain dead, suit charges - NYPOST.com

I wish I could say this is not surprising.

this is why my family knows Im a donor, but doctors dont.

I donate blood, and I actually never thought about registering as an organ donor. I might just do that once I get back to Iceland.

Smartest thing you can do.