The importance of ethics in the medical field cannot be overemphasised; especially in organ donation and transplantation. Dr. Sumana Navin, Course Director, MOHAN Foundation was invited to speak on “Ethics in Organ Donation” at The Banyan Academy for Leadership in Mental Health (BALM), Chennai on 14th October 2016 on the invitation of Ms. Kamala Krishnaswamy, Assistant Director, Administration & Student Affairs. The lecture was for students pursuing their Master’s in Management, Policy Analysis and Entrepreneurship in Health and Mental Health. This course, which is a new one in India, is run in collaboration with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and VU, Amsterdam.
Mrs. Madhuri Menon, Dean, BALM introduced Dr. Sumana to the students. In the first part of her lecture, Dr. Sumana gave an overview about organ failure, brainstem death, organ donation and transplantation, myths about organ donation, and pledging for organ donation. This helped put into context the second part of the lecture, which was on Ethics in Organ Donation. She said that organ donation is actually an integral part of good end of life care and should be looked at from that perspective. She mentioned “The Conversation Project” started by Ellen Goodman that speaks about the importance of having a “conversation” with one’s family about end of life care, and by extension about organ donation as well. The Conversation Project appeared in an article in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics by Roop Gursahani and R. K. Mani titled “India: not a country to die in.” The article addresses several critical issues including end of life care, brainstem death, euthanasia, persistent vegetative state, and organ donation – all with enormous ethical implications.
Dr. Sumana then contextualised the different principles of medical ethics through case studies. There were lively exchanges between the students. In the discussion on pledging for organ donation and autonomy, Dr. Simone den Brinker said that the Netherlands had recently adopted ‘Presumed Consent,’ but families continued to play an important decision-making role in organ donation. She added that they had developed a protocol for making ethical decisions in medical situations. The students expressed their views strongly and clearly, and although opinions differed they all agreed that ethical decisions needed to be robust and justifiable.
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