Honoring patients' organ donation decisions when family conflict is present: Experience from a single organ procurement organization

摘要

Donor designation refers to the laws and processes for documentation of an individual's wishes regarding organ donation should that person become eligible for donation at death. All 50 states have laws supporting donor designation. Donor-family conflict arises when a designated donor's family attempts to rescind the donor's authorization to donate. Little guidance exists in the current literature to address these situations. Hospital public relations offices and organ procurement organization (OPO) records were queried to assess the incidence of legal action and adverse media coverage. Public legal records were searched for civil actions involving the hospitals at which these conflicts occurred. Fourteen cases of donor-family conflict were identified. Organ procurement proceeded in 9 (64%) of 14. A total of 38 organs were transplanted from these 9 donors. For those nine cases, median follow-up time was 57 months (interquartile range, 52-77 months;range, 38-114 months).