Organ donation and the anesthesiologist

Abstract

Apparently, there this no need for a job description of the anesthesiologist in the domain of organ donation. Obviously, he/she is a member of the medical team which acts inside but also outside the operating room (OR) during all stages of organ donation. A short enumeration of the anesthesiologist’s activities in this field will include: diagnosis of brain death in ICU preservation of cardiac activity after brain death till organ recovery (harvesting) preservation of heart and kidney functionality after the diagnosis of cardiac arrest (in the case of a non-heart-beating donation- NHBD) participation to the discussions related to a possible organ donation with the deceased family preserving blood circulation just before organ recovery performing anesthesia for organ transplantation Anesthesia for organ transplantation is not part of this presentation, which deals solely with the anesthesiologist role in organ donation.