Organ Donation and Transplantation - in the Focus between Medicine, Ethics and Law

Helmut Arbogast^1,2,3, Hans Neft^1,2,3, Detlef Bösebeck^1,2,3

¹Department of Surgery, University of Munich, Munich, Germany, ²Bavarian State Ministry of Health, Government of Bavaria, Munich, Germany, ³Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation, Berlin, Germany

Introduction: With the aim of increasing the awareness for the necessity of organ donation and transplantation, in November 2001, in cooperation between the Transplant Centre of the University of Munich, the Bavarian State Ministries of Social Affairs, Education and Health and the German Foundation of Organ Transplantation (DSO), an educational project for schools was launched.

Materials and Methods: After first promising events with intense discussions with students age 16 to 18, before graduation from high school, we expanded the invitations to junior high school students and introduced special events for teachers, which we see as effective multiplicators of the educational contents. The activity, scheduled for approximately 4.5 hours, begins with a display of the legal basics of organ donation and transplantation, followed by a vivid interactive presentation of the work of the organ procurement organisation DSO, ending with a quiz. A representative of the transplant centre demonstrates the milestones of transplantation, initially in a historical, chronologic way. Interposed are personal presentations of transplanted patients. The audience gets emotionally involved, by listening to their mostly touching fate on the waiting list, but also by their successful transplant story. Ethical questions related to the topic of organ donation and transplantation form a final discourse at the end of the clinical presentation. A 20-minute movie summarizing the tasks of the Eurotransplant foundation is completing the event.

Results: Meanwhile, in 110 performances, issued monthly during schooldays, more than 6.000 students and more than 500 teachers have been involved. The excellent feedback for this event is mirrored in the first „price for enhancing organ donation“, awarded by the German Transplant Society (DTG), in 2005 Its attraction is uncompromised, even in its 12^th year after launching the activity, stressed by the fact of the monthly events being booked out already at the beginning of the new year. Additionally, the most important topics are available in .PDF format, intended for download for teachers and use in their classrooms, thus further spreading the open discussion about organ donation and transplantation. Occasional participation of celebrities, politicians and broadcasters further enhance the attractivity of the event.

Conclusions: The project presented demonstrates a promising way, how to deal with a frequently tabooed, ethically explosive topic, by information without indoctrination and thus leads to a positive resonance in favor of organ donation and transplantation, and promotes the evolution of students into responsible individuals.