The overriding opinion within the medical community of practice is that caregivers should attempt to reduce psychiatric barriers to successful transplantation. However certain questions remain after years of debate: (i) are current evaluations uniform throughout transplant centers throughout the country? How should we view transplant eligibility criteria that exclude patients with affective and psychotic disorders from transplantation on the basis of their psychiatric diagnosis? These and other questions will be explored during this in depth hour of Profound Conversations with our esteemed guests from the medical community.

Conversationalists:

Farha Abbasi, MD Michigan State University Dept. of Psychiatry

Clive Callender, MD Professor of Surgery, Howard University Hospital

Shawn-Paul Harrison Medical Navigator Specialist Louisiana Organ Procurement Association

Anil Paramesh, MD, Professor of Surgery, Urology, and Pediatrics Tulane University School of Medicine

Joey Boudreaux Chief Clinical Officer Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency

Show quotes and highlights

A lot of people think that anyone can become an organ donor. And unfortunately, that's not the case. It's a very small few who suffer a brain injury of some sort. So it's always a sudden event very tragic.

So one, our primary roles, besides obviously saving lives through donation, is to support these families who are suffering through this acute extreme grieving.

I started the transplant program at Howard University in 1973. And as we looked at the situation, the number one problem in transplantation, then and even now has been the shortage of donors.

There is a stigma around mental illnesses, right? And this stigma always arises from lack of information, not having that awareness, and things we don’t know about can lead to fear.

Imagine a scenario where we have a very scarce resource where there are not enough organs for everybody.

Because us as family advocates supporting the family, it's not just for donation purposes, every family should be supported during a time of loss.

We spoke earlier that transplant centers are graded upon your success rate, plus we're trying to look at utility as well as equity.

One of my favorite parts of my job is when the transplant recipient, and those donor families meet.

I think everyone here has expressed that we need more donors, we need more of the community to be part of the donor committee, and every show, I get to say I am a donor, I'm an African American, I'm an elder, by some people standards, and I still want my body to do something for somebody

I would like to say that saving a life is saving humanity

I'd add also to this that some people just aren't healthy enough to give organs. So they can also give tissues. Tissues that can enhance lives can make the blind see the deaf ear, the lame walk again, so that it is in this gift of life that we can have on this.

Profound Conversations Executive Producers are the Muslim Life Planning Institute, a national community building organization whose mission is to establish pathways to lifelong learning and healthy communities at the local, national and global level.   MLPN.life

The Profound Conversations podcast is produced by Erika Christie www.ErikaChristie.com