June 21, 2005
The American Medical Association is calling on doctors to support studies of policies that could markedly increase the number of organs available for transplant operations.
The new AMA policy calls for physicians to support pilot studies that investigate the effectiveness of "presumed consent" and "mandated choice" for organ donation. In presumed consent, a willingness to donate is assumed unless an individual specifically opts-out by withdrawing consent. In mandated choice, individuals are required to express a preference for or against organ donation.
"More than 88,000 patients are on the national organ transplantation waiting list," said AMA Trustee Peter Carmel, M.D. "The new AMA policies explore innovative ways to increase organ donations, and helps raise awareness about the critical shortage of organ donations."
"At this time, there's not enough data to support a national plan of presumed consent or mandated choice for organ donation," Carmel said. "Last year alone, 7,060 patients on the national organ transplantation list died needlessly because organs were not available. If either of these programs can reduce that number, it's well worth further study."
The AMA also adopted a new ethical policy to guide physicians involved in transplanting organs from living donors -- the first national guidelines to be developed. The guidelines include assigning living donors an advocate team that is primarily concerned with the well-being of the donor, and physician support for the development and maintenance of a national database of living donor outcomes.
"Over the past 10 years the number of living organ donors has more than doubled, and these living donors who give the gift of life require special protection," Carmel said. "These new ethical guidelines will help physicians as they deal with this unique patient population."
