By Hironori Kobayashi, MED 2015 Participant
The organ transplantation are very magical for the patients who suffer from very severe and irreversible organ dysfunctions. Today, once the structure and function of organs have been lost, we have no way to recover them by medications and operations except for organ transplantations. Regenerative medicine is certainly an appealing way of solving those problems, but we have no choice but to delay the progress of illness by medications and wait for donors now if we face such a problem.
However, organ transplantations have ethical and religious problems. Live donations have to hurt live donors who is in a good state of health. Brain death donations have to stop the treatment for brain death donors and often force their bereaved family and the medical personnel to stand mental and spiritual pain. Death donations seem to be the easiest way to do organ transplantations in the sense. In spite of that, someone who do not want to interrupt dead people from sleeping peacefully or consider they are against the religious and ethical dogma of individuals disagree with organ transplantations.
I think it is very fortunate to have a chance to exchange the way of thought on organ transplantations with the donors’ families, staffs of Donor West Network West, doctors, overseas students. Owing to this precious experience, I found the fact that various kinds of backgrounds exist behind medicine. I believe that we, of course, have to understand the mechanisms of organ systems scientifically, but we need to struggle with mental, cultural, and religious aspects of diseases, as well as academic and scientific aspects.
