The second part of the Angels of Change volunteer training programme for students of Tagore Medical College took place at the MOHAN Foundation office on 28^th February 2020. The students were accompanied by two faculty members. The Interaction with the Experts part of the training began with participants registering as Angels of Change in the MOHAN Foundation website, a platform that would allow them to upload their activities related to organ donation awareness. This was followed by a mock exercise of registering as organ donors on the online platform.

The first expert speaker was Dr. Rajeevalochana Parthasarathy, Consultant – Nephrologist, Madras Medical Mission who spoke about chronic kidney disease in India. She explained what chronic kidney disease is, the causes of kidney failure and the treatment options. The 40-minute session was highly interactive and at the end of it the students clearly understood the symptoms of Kidney failure that they must watch out for.

The next activity involved the students writing a thank you letter to a donor and their family from a recipient’s perspective. This helped the students appreciate the importance of organ donation from a different angle.

Mrs. Usha Balasubramanian, a caregiver and the next speaker gave insights on the role of a caregiver caring for an organ failure patient. She shared the experience of how her life changed when her husband was diagnosed with kidney failure. She elaborated on the challenges faced right from choosing a doctor to registering in the transplant registry for a cadaver organ.  She ended her talk mentioning how the death of her husband has motivated her to work with patient support groups and promote the organ donation cause.

The last session was by Dr. Karthik S R, Anesthesiologist from Stanley Medical College on brain death diagnosis, certification and donor maintenance. He covered the following points in his talk:

• Brain death – definition
• Ventilating and medication of potential donors
• TN Government Orders and forms prescribed
• Brain stem death testing – reflexes, apnoea and ancillary tests
• Challenges during donor maintenance
• Investigations
• Perioperative management
• Managing derangements
• Organ retrieval
• Importance of organ donation

The session ended with the students who had written exceedingly good thank you letters receiving tokens of appreciation.