Awareness on Organ and Body Donation Among Dental and Medical Students

Abstract

Cadaveric donation comprises body donation, organ donation that is, taking out organs (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, pancreas) from brain dead people, as well as tissue donation, meaning taking tissues (skin, corneas, tendons, bone) from brain dead as well as heart dead people.In a broader sense, however, pathologists are involved in cadaveric tissue donation as well as taking tissues from cadavers for diagnostic procedures within the framework of the autopsy (fluids, organs, tissue samples), and to gather material for research and training students and pathology residents (tissues, organs). For cadaveric tissue donation, different ethical and practical issues must be considered, which we will try to review in this paper from the perspective of the pathologist. It is possible to donate your body to medical science after your death. To make the arrangements, contact the anatomical institute of one of the universities in India , as this is a separate process to organ or tissue donor registration. The aim of the study is to evaluate the knowledge and awareness of organ donation. Analytic, longitudinal and quantitative study, conducted in 5 Medical/Dental College in Natal/RN, between November 2019 and January 2020. Survey has been conducted among dental and medical students 105 responses have been received from 5 medical and dental colleges. Regarding the donation structure, there were deficiencies of physical resources (temperature control), materials (mobile radiology) , human resources (nurse technicians) and lack of adequate records and care protocols. In the process of donation, the biggest problems were related to the evaluation stages, brain death diagnosis, maintenance and documentation, with greater proportion of care for the non-donor. 85.4% of the respondents were aware of Organ donation whereas 14.6% of the study population were not aware about organ donation. The primary outcome was intention to donate. Taking a donor card after the interview was a secondary behavioral outcome.