Hot Topics: Organ Transplant & Donation

Blog Posts (33)

February 24, 2017

BioethicsTV: Substituted Judgment

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

On Grey’s Anatomy (Season 13, Episode 14) two cases lead to questions about who makes decisions for patients.…

January 13, 2017

BioethicsTV: Violating confidentialty, ethical decision-making, unapproved human experimentation

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Chicago Med (Season 2; Episode 10): In this episode a heart patient returns from a previous episode when a heart is found for a transplant.…

January 6, 2017

BioethicsTV (January 2-6, 2017): Violating promises, coma v. PVS, transplant evaluation, and whether to abort

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Pure Genius (Season1; Episode 10- 1/5). In this episode, Dr. Channarayapatra is working with a patient in lung failure.…

December 20, 2016

BioethicsTV (November 2016) Continued: Further commentary on Informed Consent

by Abhimanyu Amarnani

Chicago Med (Season 2, Episode 8, 11/10/16).

A December 1st BIOETHICSTV blog post briefly mentioned, Season 2, Episode 8 of Chicago Med.…

December 19, 2016

BioethicsTV: Pure Genius Proudly Ignores the Rules

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

“We’re Bunker Hill, since when do we follow the rules” sums up the attitude of this poor-performing medical drama that kicks ethics, law, and regulation to the curb on a weekly basis.…

December 1, 2016

BioethicsTV (November 2016): Informed consent, HIV organ transplants, Forgiveness, Assisted Suicide, Treating Prisoners, Undue Influence in Consent, and Failure to Vaccinate

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Grey’s Anatomy (Season 13, Episode 9). A building collapses when a landlord has failed to make necessary repairs a year after an earthquake.…

October 28, 2016

BioethicsTV: 10/20 – Distributing organs, scope of practice, poverty, and kidnapping

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Grey’s Anatomy (Season 13, Episode 5). In this episode June is an 80 year old woman who has been waiting for 3 years for a liver transplant.…

October 24, 2016

Autonomy by Default

by Cass R. Sunstein, JD

Default rules, taken as such, do not intrude on autonomy, even if they influence people without persuading them.…

September 30, 2016

BioethicsTV: Community Research Consent and Competing for an Infant Heart

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

In the fall premiere of Code Black, military trauma surgeons are visiting the hospital on an annual pilgrimage to share what they have learned treating battlefield injuries.…

April 4, 2016

BIOETHICSTV: House of Cards Shuffles The Deck on Organ Allocation

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

BioethicsTV is an occasional bioethics.net feature where we examine bioethical issues raised in televised medical dramas.

This past weekend I was binging on House of Cards, season 4.…

View More Blog Entries

Published Articles (11)

AJOB Primary Research: Volume 8 Issue 3 - Sep 2017

Consent for organ donation after circulatory death at U.S. transplant centers George E. Hardart, Matthew K. Labriola, Kenneth Prager & Marilyn C. Morris

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 17 Issue 5 - May 2017

Caring for Patients or Organs: New Therapies Raise New Dilemmas in the Emergency Department Arjun Prabhu, Lisa S. Parker & Michael A. DeVita

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 16 Issue 11 - Nov 2016

The Ethics of Organ Donor Registration Policies: Nudges and Respect for Autonomy Douglas MacKay & Alexandra Robinson

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 16 Issue 11 - Nov 2016

Autonomy by Default Cass R. Sunstein

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 15 Issue 8 - Aug 2015

Persistent Problems in Death and Dying David Magnus

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 15 Issue 8 - Aug 2015

Addressing Consent Issues in Donation After Circulatory Determination of Death Kim J. Overby, Michael S. Weinstein & Autumn Fiester

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 14 Issue 10 - Oct 2014

Assessing the Likely Harms to Kidney Vendors in Regulated Organ Markets Julian Koplin

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 14 Issue 10 - Oct 2014

Selling Ourselves: The Ethics of Paid Living Kidney Donation Nancy S. Jecker

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 13 Issue 6 - Jun 2013

Toward a More Stable Blood Supply: Charitable Incentives, Donation Rates, and the Experience of September 11 Reuben G. Sass

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 12 Issue 6 - Jun 2012

The Case for Kidney Donation Before End-of-Life Care Paul E. Morrisey

News (409)

October 20, 2017 9:00 am

A 2-year-old’s kidney transplant was put on hold — after his donor father’s probation violation (Washington Post)

A father in Georgia who had prepared to donate a kidney to his 2-year-old son said last week that he is being forced to wait after a recent stint in county jail.

September 25, 2017 9:00 am

Scientists grow bullish on pig-to-human transplants (Science)

Add your name to a waitlist for a kidney transplant in the United States today, and you’ll join around 100,000 people, many of whom have already been waiting years. The scarcity of life-saving organs for transplants has raised hopes for substitute organs from pigs, which have a similar anatomy to humans. But decades of scientific setbacks have kept clinical trials of that approach, called xenotransplantation, on the horizon. Now, a few teams are chomping at the bit. Exhilarated by recent results in monkey experiments, some researchers here at a meeting of the International Xenotransplantation Association are eyeing human testing.

December 8, 2016 9:00 am

Genetically Modified Pigs Could Ease Organ Shortage (The Wall Street Journal)

The goal is to create pig islets that the human immune system won’t recognize as foreign, so they can be transplanted into people.

September 7, 2016 8:00 am

Frenchwoman who got world’s 1st face transplant dies at 49 (Washington Post)

Isabelle Dinoire, a Frenchwoman who received the world’s first partial face transplant, has died 11 years after the surgery that set the stage for dozens of other transplants worldwide. She was 49.

June 14, 2016 8:26 am

White House, private sector act to reduce organ transplant waiting list (Washington Post)

The White House and a group of universities, companies and nonprofits announced new steps Monday to reduce the wait time for an organ transplant, including a $160 million Pentagon program to develop ways to repair and replace cells and tissue.

March 25, 2016 11:39 am

Most Americans Would Donate a Kidney for Cash

For more than 20 years, it’s been illegal to give or accept money for organ donation in the U.S. The law was intended to prevent wealthy patients from having a better chance of receiving donor organs than their less affluent counterparts. As a result, many experts say there is now a shortage of most organs. Case in point: kidneys, the only full organ that can be transplanted from someone who is still alive and not significantly impact the donor’s long-term health. Deaths from end-stage renal disease can easily be prevented with a donor, but the line for one is very long.

March 10, 2016 1:25 pm

New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor

In the anguishing wait for a new kidney, tens of thousands of patients on waiting lists may never find a match because their immune systems will reject almost any transplanted organ. Now, in a large national study thatexperts are calling revolutionary, researchers have found a way to get them the desperately needed procedure.

March 2, 2016 12:34 pm

First Uterus Transplant in the US Gives 26-year-old Woman Chance at Pregnancy

Surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic have performed the nation’s first uterus transplant, offering a 26-year-old infertile woman a chance at getting pregnant.

March 31, 2015 9:20 pm

Black market trade in organs targeted in anti-trafficking treaty

More than a dozen countries have agreed to enforce laws to fight trafficking in human organs, a business that exploits the world’s poorest people and earns criminals up to $1.2 billion in illegal profits every year.

February 17, 2015 2:54 pm

China's 'blood famine' drives patients to the black market

China’s rising demand for healthcare is exposing a chronic shortage of an essential commodity: blood.

View More News Items