To Opt In Or To Opt Out

So we are now into the second week of blog posting!
Since my last post, I've learned quite a lot about what type of organ transplant system our country and other countries, such as the ones in Europe, have. The United States goes by the opt in system where only those who have given explicit consent are donors. Countries in Europe, like Belgium, Austria and France, adhere to the opt out system where everyone who has not refused is considered a donor. These European countries actually have high donor rates, for example Austria has 21 donors per million people while Germany, who has an opt out system, only has 16 donors per million. Though these numbers seem low, they do make a huge difference in making someone else's life better and possibly saving them from a fate that could be prevented with the help of an organ donation.

A fun fact that I learned recently is that Wales will actually be adopting a soft opt out system for organ and tissue donation on December 1, 2015. Anyone who does not register their decision by this date stating whether or not they want to opt in or opt out, they will be treated as having no objection to being a donor. On their website, which there is a link for in my works cited page if you want to take a look at it for yourself, there is a huge countdown starting with the total amount of hours to the total amount of seconds until December 1. This countdown is very interesting and a cool idea to me, personally.

After researching about other countries that have the opt out system, I have caught myself developing a fire in my stomach that makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs that this system does more help than harm. If the United States adopted the opt in system and left behind the opt out system, organ donations could raise up to about 50%. The American Kidney Fund, along with other organizations, are already pushing for a change in the opt in system currently in place.

Even though I have been researching about this topic for a couple of weeks now, I still want to keep researching. I want to get my hands on as much information as I can get before I move ahead with my plan of compiling what information I have and polling people around my community about which organ donation system they would prefer more. If you have not noticed already, I have added a static page that I will dedicate to people I will and have come in contact with that either need an organ, received one, or donated one to someone else. Throughout the duration of this project, I will be doing my best to update this new page in order to spread awareness of organ donation and that there are more people in the world that are in the tight situation of being in need of an organ or even dealing with the option of being a donor or not.

Be A Donor

20% Time was implemented into my class to help encourage my peers and I to explore a certain topic this semester that was not just about the class, anatomy and physiology. This new process is basically supposed to be twenty percent of our class time is devoted to exploring our topics, to create something new and innovated and, at the end of the semester, present our final results to the class in a TED talk style kind of presentation. This is supposed to encourage us to explore a subject that we wouldn't usually explore because there just isn't enough time in our daily schedule to to do it. With 20% Time, we can explore any subject that we desire and come up with a solution pertaining to the essential question that we ask ourselves at the beginning of this whole process.The essential question that I have asked myself is what can be done to help the 118,000 Americans that are on the waiting list for a lifesaving organ get an organ transplant faster. 

My 20% Time project is one where I explore the differences between the American system of organ donation, having people voluntarily want to become an organ donor, to a different country's system of of organ donation, making everyone become a organ donor automatically at the age of 18. I chose this project because this topic really hits close to home for me. 
My mom, the one in red in the picture, was actually diagnosed with renal failure at the age of 19, but was able to receive a kidney transplant from her sister after 5 years that surprisingly lasted my mother 20 years. Not too long ago, though, my mom's transplanted kidney failed in 2012 and she went back into renal failure once again. She has now been on dialysis for about three years and has been waiting for a kidney transplant this whole time. Of course I have wanted to donate my own kidney to my mom, but since I was a minor at the time I have not been able to, so I've just had to sit back and wait for someone else to donate their kidney to my mom. During the first few years, though, my family tried to spread the word for the need of a donor for my mom through facebook, but no one would respond with a ‘yes, i’ll do it’, but instead with a ‘I’m so sorry that this happened to you, I wish I could do something.’We did, however, get one person, one of my mom’s co workers daughter actually, to volunteer to donate her kidney. She wasn't able to donate her kidney, unfortunately, because she was a breast cancer recovery patient just a few years ago. Out of everyone that knew about my mother’s situation, a cancer survivor was the only person to want to volunteer and help save a life. In order to help people like my mom, I want to be able to understand this process and spread the word that there are people like this that are in need of a lifesaving organ. That not everyone is lucky enough to be perfectly healthy.

My goal is to find out what I can about the pros and cons of each system and, eventually, spread the word of the need of having people become an automatic donor in order to help save lives. I'll measure my progress by how much information I have gathered over the semester and once I have reached a point where I cannot extract any more information, that is where I will have reached the peak of my research. I'll then go around the community and doing a random sampling of whether they prefer one system to the other. I'll know I'll have reached some sort of success when I can inform people about how real this type of situation is in our small city. My plan from here is to now begin that research that I have mentioned before to enhance my knowledge about both organ transplant systems.