The Pros And Cons Of Heart Transplants

For over 13 year I have worked in healthcare and I have seen multiple patients die from organ failure as they waited on the transplant list. I’ve seen patients lose their quality of life as they sit in hospitals for weeks and months at a time as they waited for a kidney transplant. I also know people who have donated the organs of their loved ones and were blessed to know that their loss was the beginning of another person’s life.

Organ Transplantation is the replacing of a bad organ with a healthy one from another person.

Heart transplantations prolong the lives of those living with a diseased heart. They are performed when a person can no longer sustain life due to end-stage heart failure. Heart transplant is necessary when all other surgical and medical options have been exhausted. It has been recognized as an effective treatment option, however, heart transplants are limited due to non-availability of donors. In order to be considered for a heart transplant, the provider and surgeon must be sure the patient is appropriate to receive one. Compatibility, lab work, comorbidities and compliance must be all be considered before a decision to perform a transplant can be made. This paper will discuss the importance of this life saving procedure by outlining the reasons for transplantation, exploring the nursing management and utilizing current research on the topic. Through proper diagnosis, medical intervention, quality nursing care and post-surgical therapy, those that face the challenge of

Organ transfer refers to the process of donation, procurement and transplantation of an organ (Sharp, 2001:112). This practice raises ethical issues and dilemmas concerning the recipient but particularly concerning the donor. In a world where organs are more and more viewed as spare parts that can be gifted away or sold, deceased donors are seen as dehumanized objects that can be fragmented for parts and not as persons (Sharp, 2001). Living donation means a risk of exploitation of marginalized populations who may be pressured to give up their organs due to family or financial conditions (Scheper-Hughes, 2007).

Every 10 minutes, someone is added to the national transplant waiting list and on average, 21 people die each day while waiting for a transplant. (“transplant.hrsa.gov”)

May hear the word is so awful, how terrible of a person who is not up on stage of a heart transplant for heart conditions that ensured it's been damaged badly enough, even close to heart failure, aka the heart can no longer function.

How many times have you been in line to get a new drivers license and heard the clerk ask very plainly and without any real inflection of voice, would you like to be an organ donor? You don’t know if you should answer yes or no. What if you answered yes? What would you need to do to have your wishes fulfilled? I will inform of what you need to know to have your wishes carried out. Who can donate organs, and how many people are waiting in KY and Nationally for an organ transplant. I will inform you of the organ waiting list the good and the bad. Who is on the waiting list and how long they can expect to wait? What can be done to shorten the time on the organ waiting list?

A heart transplant is surgery to remove the diseased heart from a person and replace it with a healthy one from an organ donor. To remove the heart from the donor, two or more healthcare providers must declare the donor brain-dead.

believe giving Jerry a heart transplant will bring a good outcome not only to him and his wife and three children, but also to the whole hospital as well.

They bring the donor to an operation room and they carefully make incisions as they would if the patient we still alive. they recover any tissues and organs that are still healthy and able to be used in transplants, such bone, cornea, and skin. ("US Department of Health and Human Resources" ) When a transplant is successful in surgery, things aren’t perfect yet. Sometimes the body detects that a thing isn’t right and can attack the new organ. "Dr. Carrel and other scientists reasoned that the animals were dying after surgery because their bodies rejected any transplanted organ as foreign tissue. Their reasoning was based on past research. Doctors had already successfully grafted skin from one part of a patient's own body to another. However,

To begin with, the number of people on the waiting list for a transplant is substantially growing every year and volunteers to donate are decreasing by the second. The dire need of organ donors is shown:

Smoking has been a popular habit for hundreds of years. The effects of such lifestyle choices present the medical world with controversial issues. In many cases, treatment is offered to everyone, but should limitations be implemented in the medical fields with scarce resources? The issue arises in organ transplants, making the selection process for receivers ethically and economically challenging. One must consider that smoking is recognised as a mental illness, with addiction having been included in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM IV) which is recognised by professionals and by law (Lembke, 2014). Conversely, the medical professionals have both a legal and moral obligation to uphold ethical practices. It must also be considered the likelihood of a smoker re-damaging their lungs. Approximately 62% of organ transplants are performed on patients with smoking induced Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), of which 11% return to the destructive lifestyle (Verleden, 2011). These ethically controversial issues invite the question: “Should people who submit to poor lifestyle

Heart transplantation is used as a treatment for end stage heart disease in adults and children with congenital cardiac defects. [2] According to United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) 2014-2015 data, heart is consistently the 3rd most transplanted organ after Kidney and Liver in United States.[4] Nearly 1/4th of heart transplant patients show some signs of rejection in first year [6] and slightly more than 2% of heart transplant cases need re-transplants every year. Moreover, the prognosis depends on the time between the initial transplant and re-transplantation, suggesting lower survival with shorter intervals. [7]

A major obstacle to obtaining an organ transplant today is that donated organs is the very limited supply of organs, while the waiting lists are very long (Jenkins, Reilly, Schwab, 1999). Organ transplants vary in the type of organ needed, and some are more limited than others. Unfortunately, many individuals pass away waiting on the list rather than living a fulfilled life after receiving their donated organ (Jenkins, Reilly, Schwab, 1999). Due to the indefinite wait on the transplant list, the controversy has emerged about who should be allowed to receive one. It is understandable that some individuals and families of those waiting on the list become frustrated. There are opinions that anyone with a known substance abuse issue should not have access to a donated organ, especially if they do not have plans to cessate their addiction post-transplantation. However, others may feel that everyone is equal and no matter what circumstances, that they should have equal opportunity to obtain a transplant.

As of November 30th, 2017, 116,080 people formed the organ transplant waiting list. On average, twenty people on this list will die today. The number of people that need an organ transplant continues to grow; every ten minutes a new name is added to the list. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, “only 3 in 1,000 people die in a way that allows for organ donation” (“Organ Donation Statistics”). In order for a deceased person to give organs, the organs must still be alive to donate. Organ transplantation improved greatly over the last century, but with an insufficient amount of organs available, it limits breakthroughs. In essence, new methods need to replace the unavailable organs. These methods drastically improve the process of organ transplantation, and in the future, the overall humans well-being.