But.....were they brain dead?

I donated my liver, it will probably be used as someones screen door

they were still moving,, brain dead people dont really move. i know,, my uncle was brain dead for a week before my family pulled the plug,, and he never moved

I have no prob with ,just havent gotten around to registering.

but I do have probs with hospital.there are lies,cover ups.and mistakes that happen to often.

most of the time,the doctors tell ya something,that turnes out to be a lie.

I know people don't know this stuff. My parents are doctors, so I've heard a bit about this:

Nurses are generally schooled for two years after the bachelor's compared to a doctor's +8. I would not take a nurse's word on this matter because she is not the one who knows how to make the decision.

What's more, I've heard it's best to take organs when the heart is still pumping because tissue decay is minimal, so a pumping heart is not a criteria. Also, a heart can pump on it's own long after death - this is a fail-safe mechanism that the heart can pump autonomously.

Lastly, I think fresh cadavers might move due to residual nerve activity.

Yes, that is the best time to take an organ.

You might want to check your stats, nurses go through pretty much the same training as doctors do and I would trust them far more than I would trust most doctors. Nurses know their **** and they practice far more medicine and are far more hands on than most doctors.

Thanks for pointing this out. I had checked my stats, but perhaps I should have posted a link to it. I'll do so now, and summarize the information for everyone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse

And you're right, I simplified to exaggerate my point (something I shouldn't do), but it's more or less true.

For the US:
LPN/LVN - 18mo to 2 years.
RN - 2 years, some study up to 4 years.
Nurse Practitioner - 4 years (not mentioned in the Wikipedia article)
APN - graduate level.
DPN - doctorate level.

Of course, the majority of nurses are LPNs and RNs.

Again, compare this to a doctor's +8 years of training after undergraduate.

I am a registered donor.

The nurses that I have worked with have 2 yrs. when they are LPNs and 4 yrs. to Masters when they have their RN.

I'm interested by your post. It feels like you have some personal experience with this. Would you mind writing why you feel this way?

You can, at least I did,
LPN 1 yr program
Rn 2 yr program, Associate Degree
or
RN 4 yr Bachelors Degree.
In general, after prereqs, which can be 6 months to a yr.

Have participated in several organ recoveries.
The heart has stopped, prior to recovery.
NOW, the teams disects down to the organs, this can take a couple of hours, depending on which organs are being recoveried. Then the anesthesiologist turns off the machine, the heart stops, then organs are taken. If the heart is still beating there would be a lot of blood everywhere, making it difficult to continue.

I am going to donate everything of my body then I will get to live on after i die. ok in bits and pieces but still i will be living on and someone will live or be able to see because of me.

Why do you mean when you say that nurses practice more medicine than doctors? I mean, a doctor practices medicine all day, just like a nurse does.

I suppose you mean that the nurses practice a more important aspect of medicine? That is tough to argue, but it's arguable.

When you say "hands on," what do you mean by that? Again, a doctor practices medicine all day long.

Lol, good one. How's that for an afterlife, guys?

After the organs are removerd, they are moved to a separate table where further preparations are made. Specific measurements of arteries and veins, marking to identify arteries and veins. Then the organs are perfused which specific solutions to keep them viable, and ready to transport. Most are packed in ice. I have seen in use a device that keeps a heart pumping, It is the most bizare thing I have ever seen. I box about the size of a med. sized cooler, with a clear plastic cover, inside the heart is connected to tubing and is beating, as if it was still in a body. Extends the time the organ is viable and almost eliminates damgage to organ due to oxygen loss.

I do have some experience, but not in the way you might think. My roommate in college was in the RN program, she had to take the same classes as the med students and she had to pass them with higher grades. She chose to go into nursing so that she would have more interaction with patients and would have more hands-on interaction in the healing process.

Also, I have had leukemia for 12 years. I love and trust my doctors, don't get me wrong. But, in my experience, it is the nurses who are far more hands-on and active in patient treatment. If I have a question, I have to call the nurse and 99% of the time, they have the correct answer without even having to speak with the doctor. The ratio of interaction with my doctor as compared to his nursing staff is about 5% doc/90% nursing.

Don't get me wrong, I have tremendous respect for doctors and they do go through extremely rigorous training and for the most part, are pretty smart. But nurses go through much, much more and they don't do it for the money, they do it for the love of what they do. They deserve every ounce of respect, and then some, as the doctors.

BTW, I never answered your original question. If I were able to be an organ donor, I would be in a heartbeat. I was up until 12 years ago, but when you're on chemo, they won't allow it, understandably as chemo does a number on your organs.

I am a firm believer in organ donation. You won't miss it when you're gone so why not? Also, to put my own plug in, if you are an organ donor and have not put yourself on the bone marrow registry as well, please strongly consider it, especially if you are a "minority" (I put that in quotes as it's the common term). It is a very simple blood test. If you are chosen as a marrow doner, it's a very simple process. You will be left with a very large bruise which will be uncomfortable and you may be slightly anemic for a week or two, but it's a very small price to pay. Too many people die needlessly for lack of a marrow doner.

Ok, off my soapbox

Not only can you donate organs, you can choose to donate the rest of your body to medical schools.

It's cool to hear that side of the story, Sunzin.

I agree completely that Nurses often spend more time talking with the patient, answering questions, etc. That's a very important part of medicine, certainly. It's easy to see that from the patient's side, it looks like it's the nurses who are doing the most. I suppose one could describe the doctor's roll as being "behind the scenes."

Let me explain a little more: If a doctor took the time to do explain everything to patients, to answer all these questions, he wouldn't have time to actually *practice* the medicine that is being explained to the patients. In this sense, the doctors depend heavily on nurses to talk with the patients. That's how the system works...and I agree that nurses should get paid more than they are now. It's a tough job. ;-)

(Oh, and my sources for the ^^^^ above information are practicing doctors.)

As for this thread though, when it comes to deciding whether a patient is viable for organ harvesting, it's still the doctor who knows how to decide, not the nurse.