Types of donations and donors
Types of donations and donors
History
Types of donations and donors
Types of donations and donors
Types of donations and donors
Types of donations and donors
Types of donations and donors
Types of donations and donors
Donation's nation
Donation's nation
Donations to science
Nowadays, many people claim that donating organs in order to be transplanted is a great privilege. Nevertheless, some potential donors give up their desires of donating because they are old and they think their bodies are not useful.
Most of these people do not know that donating your organs or your body to science is an incredibly important gift and the age does not matter. “A 96-year-old heart is still as valuable as a 26-year-old heart in our world,” said Heidi Kayser, director of donor education and outreach at MedCure. The donation may be used for research, for anatomical examination and for training healthcare professionals. Consequently, donating your body to a medical school can save several lives because doctors and nurses learn by using cadavers as manikins.
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On the one hand, cadavers allow young surgeons to study and practice, since they use them as a game or simulator. Students accumulate hours of practice before applying their knowledge to real people. Moreover, corpses are used by innovative and modern doctors who try their experimental interventions on them. For example, doctor Mario Fernández has developed a technique to treat larynx and pharynx tumours through the mouth by using donated bodies.
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Surgeons practicing with cadavers in the Faculty of Medicine of Madrid I El País
Other professionals who use corpses are the anaesthetists. These doctors use ultrasound techniques to study the points of the body where anaesthesia should be injected. Nurses and bioengineering companies also practice complicated operations and carry out new techniques on cadavers.
A group of medical students dissect a corpse during academic practices. I E.M.
Besides, in 2014, many donor’s relatives who donated their bodies to the Complutense University of Madrid were horrified due to a scandal regarding the conservation of the corpses. In one room in the basement of the Faculty of Medicine, dozens of badly preserved cadavers were accumulated. In addition, more and more corpses were received and wasted because they hid the fact that they did not have the capacity to keep all of them. The photos of various dead bodies in such unhealthy conditions caused the fall of donations, not only in the Complutense University of Madrid, but also in many others.
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The professor of Human Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Madrid Francisco Clascá said that what happened in the Complutense is really atypical.
He acknowledged that many donors showed concern about the scandal that occurred in the neighboring university and his medical school opened its doors to show that in their facilities corpses were treated with dignity.
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In conclusion, given that there are strong arguments for and against donating your body to science, everyone should decide what they would like to do with their organs, but we all have to take into account the help we can give by becoming donors.