Have a Heart!
by Alphaville Herald on 19/08/07 at 6:00 pm
SL organ donation moves beyond “Kidney Thief Bathtub”
by Jessica Holyoke
Organ Donation means many things to different people. To some, it is just an option while getting your driver’s license. For others, it is a profession that requires empathy, medical knowledge and the ability to chose who gets an organ from a transplant list. For others, it is the only way to stay alive.
In Second Life, two people are trying to provide outreach, education and support to residents regarding organ donation. The Organ Donation and Transplantation group was started by Irukandji Piek and Zeke Yoshikawa. The purpose of the group is to bring together the two sides of transplantation that don’t normally get together, the people who work with the donor families and the recipients of that gift.
Iruandji and Zeke
Irukandji Piek started an Organ Donation awareness group a few months back. Her experience with organ donation was with working with donor families at a trauma center. She went to terminal patients, evaluating the potential for donation, before talking with the patient’s families to educate them about the benefits and dispel the myths of organ donation.
Zeke Yoshikawa met Piek when he went searching for a support group for transplant recipients. Two years ago, Yoshikawa needed a heart transplant. Luckily, he was on the transplant list for two days before getting a heart. He and Piek formed the current Organ Donation and Transplantation group.
While future plans include trying to work with UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing, regional transplant centers, such as Gift of Life in Philadelphia and hospitals, the current plans include dispelling myths about organ donation. A fun Second Life twist to this is the “Kidney Thief Bathtub” that’s available in world. While many people believe that organ donation is done against the will of the patient, either living or dead, donation is done through a fully informed consent process.
Another important myth to dispel is that all potential donors can donate all of their organs. There are many factors to donation including disease state, blood type, and how long it will take to get the organ from the donor to the recipient, due to organs beginning to deteriorate after a certain number of hours. Kidneys can last up to 40 hours outside of the body while a pancreas begins to deteriorate after 8 hours.
The group is new and still determining how to best use SL to achieve their goals.
Irukandji Piek says
This is very new territory. Largely because of the chasm between donation and transplantation, they are VERY separate world for ethical reasons professionally. But when it comes to saving lives, to supporting friends and family, the grieving and the saved, there has to be some crossover here We are hoping for input from our members, to find ways both to be useful and to provide support.
If you are interested in joining, search for Organ Donation and Transplantation under groups.
Dave Undis
Aug 19th, 2007
Over half of the 97,000 Americans on the national transplant waiting list will die before they get a transplant. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Over 6,000 of our neighbors suffer and die needlessly every year as a result.
There is a simple way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — give organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. People who aren’t willing to share the gift of life should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.
Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at http://www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.
Prokofy Neva
Aug 19th, 2007
The point of this article was completely destroyed, and made trivial, by having a really strange spoof gore poster up about kidney thieves as the picture. Ugh.
Dave, your plan is really coercive. Medical decisions have to be based on medical need, not altruism. And a person whose own organs have been transplanted isn’t going to be a good candidate for medical donation of organs, anyway. So that was stupid.
Reg Baxter
Aug 19th, 2007
Well I have to agree with Prok that Dave’s comment was indeed stupid for all the reasons she says.
I also have to disagree with Prok 100% about the kidney thieves poster which is as stated a “fun Second Life twist”. It is a known urban legend with no truth to it, but is a very helpful tool in getting peoples attention and starting conversations on organs and those who need them etc. As the uncle of a kidney recipient (was an unknown donor as none of us was a good match) I can say without a doubt that she would find the poster hilarious, in fact she would probably buy the prop. It is great tool to get the subject out there.
So to wrap up, Dave don’t be such a tool, and Prok don’t be such a drama queen and get a sense of humor(sorry don’t think they have transplants for that, need to get it on your own), having been in the hospital ward with organ recipients I can tell you they have a lot better one than you.
And finally to Irukandji Piek and Zeke Yoshikawa keep up the good work. I know in Canada we all have a health care card (which you should carry with you) where you can check off if you want to donate but I am guessing its not that simple in the USA.
Prokofy Neva
Aug 19th, 2007
It’s a stupid poster in bad taste.
Americans have a check-off option on their drivers’ licenses to donate organs. Since a lot of people die in car crashes, it makes good sense. And people carry it as ID even if they aren’t driving.
I know people who wouldn’t find the poster funny, maybe because they got transplants and died anyway. Oh well.
Kahni Poitier
Aug 19th, 2007
What a liberal, socialist mindframe there, Prok.
Help everyone even if they won’t help others.
You’re a secret socialist, I can tell.
Allana Dion
Aug 19th, 2007
>”And a person whose own organs have been transplanted isn’t going to be a good candidate for medical donation of organs, anyway. So that was stupid.”
While I also disagree with the concept of giving first to those who are willing to give as well, the idea of organ donation is to save those whom we are able to save, meaning doctors make their selections based on the likelihood of survival …. the above quote is actually an untrue statement Prok.
A heart transplant recipient can still go on to later donate lungs, kidneys, bone marrow, eyes, even his/her entire body to medical research. Even an unhealthy individual who may not be able to immediately save lives through organ donation can still have an impact on future medicine by allowing the medical community to use him/her after death for the purposes of research and teaching.
Allana Dion
Aug 19th, 2007
And the kidney thief urban legend thing is just a silly joke, a little silliness never hurt anyone and if it gets people talking, that’s a good thing. Lighten up.
Darkfoxx Bunyip
Aug 20th, 2007
Laughter is good medicine. A little humour, even with something as serious as having an organ that needs replacing, is a good thing.
I don’t know a single person that would find the kidney thieves bathtub in bad taste, taking in account the reason for it: creating awareness for the huge shortage of organ donors. Even my uncle, who has a brand new kidney but still fights a tough battle every day, and will probably die way too young for his age, would find it hilarious. He would still find it hilarious on his deathbed. But maybe because he does have a sense of humor.
Taken out of this context, yes, indeed even I would find this bathtub in bad taste.
My advise is the same as Reg’s: grow a humour gland, you desperately need one.
I want to share something completely different, but in the same context, that might be interresting:
A little while ago, here in the Netherlands, a television show aired, (my memory needs replacing too, I forgot the name of the show: anyone wanna donate some memory to me?)
that was so much discussed in the media in advance, and even the government took a look into it, to see if they could somehow prevent it from airing as it was seen as a very bad idea:
The idea of the show, which was set up similar to shows like Idols and America’s next top model, was the following:
A donor offered an organ, and out of several contestants, one would be chosen who would recieve that kidney, trough the possibility of people calling in to vote, and in the end, based on that and several question rounds and whatnot, the donor would select one person to recieve her organ.
The fact that this just went around the huge waiting lists we have here in the Netherlands, as well as the nature of the show, them giving away a lifesaving organ like it was a dishwasher won in a gamesshow, caused quite the discussion in the entire country. The result, a huge number of vieuwers.
I personally didn’t watch it, as I didn’t want to see someone deciding on life and death, brought onto television as a fun gamesshow, and simply going over the heads of all those pations who desperately needed what they so lightheratedly gave away, and they had to wait possibly years for it.
But, at the end of the show, when they would announce the final winner, the host turned to the camera and revieled it was all one big hoax, the donor as well as the patient contestants were all hired actors, and it never was meant to give away an actual organ. The whole show was set up simply to draw attention to the huge waitinglists of several years for all sorts of organs, and the enourmous shortage of donors.
It worked, the number of people giving themselves up as a potential donors was heartwarming. The actual numbers I don’t remember, but they’re not really important.
The whole show was in very bad taste, not quite like a kidney thieved bathtub, but still the whole country spoke shame of it… Untill the very last minute.
And it did exactly what it was meant to do, just like this bathtub: draw attention to an enourmous problem.
I like this bathtub, cause of it doing exactly what it should do, in this very context. And I love the people who started this group, and I will certainly be joining it.
GreenLantern Excelsior
Aug 21st, 2007
Darkfoxx, thank you for providing the ending to that story. I had read about the show on the Internet but never did find out that it was a hoax. That’s a great result.
Lifesharers sounds like a terrible idea. There must be better ways to encourage people to become donors than making them live in fear that they won’t receive an organ unless they join one particular group.
Irukandji Piek
Sep 11th, 2007
Thank you all for your comments. Regarding the bathtub poster, please note it is not a product of the Organ Donation & Transplantation Group. I was amused to find it when I first began my SL search on donation and transplantation. I found the bathtub posted for sale in a shop. Though I sent a note to it’s vendor about putting up a poster for our group beside it I never heard anything back. I appreciate how many of you can see the humor here.
Having been in the donation field, I’d have to say that until Americans are willing to openly acept donation as the norm there may be little that changes donation rates. Many other countries have a natural assumption that an individual is a donor unless they specifically opt out. Here we have an opt-in system.
It has been my experience that, whether registered as donor or not, it is the very rare case that a family will go against an individual’s wishes if known. Acute grief and trauma can make for very stressful times and knowing somehow some good can come of an unforseen tragedy can bring some measure of comfort.
Again, thank you for your interest and participation. Feel free to drop by Canis Beach, search for either Zeke Yoshikawa or me, and/or join the group. We look forward to continuing the discussion.
Irukandji Piek