>> Welcome to our Facebook Live event
here from Johns Hopkins,
I'm Elizabeth Tracey.
It's April, that's National Donate Life Month.
We're honoring organ donation,
and here with me today is Clint Burns.
Clint is an expert in this area
and also I'm gonna tell people ahead of time,
an organ recipient.
>> Yes, Elizabeth, thanks for having me today.
I'm super excited to be here.
April is Donate Life Month.
It's a time we all come together,
educate the public about organ, eye, and tissue donation
and really celebrate the heroes
who gave the gift of organ donation.
Every year we come together as a nation to do that.
>> Let's talk about some of the statistics
relative to donation.
Tell me how many people right now
are on transplant lists waiting for an organ?
>> Currently, over 120,000 people are waiting
for an organ in the state of Maryland.
Within 10 miles of Johns Hopkins,
there's almost a thousand people on the wait list.
>> That's amazing.
What organs specifically are they waiting for?
>> You could be waiting for a heart, lung,
liver, kidney, pancreas, or intestines.
Any of those organs, they may be on the wait list.
>> We hear some very dismal statistics
regarding death while people are awaiting transplant.
>> Yeah, currently there's 20 people a day dying
waiting on an organ.
You're 12 times more likely to be
on the transplant wait list,
to be in the position of donating organs.
So that's why it's so important
that the public educate themselves about organ donation.
>> Review that statistic for me one more time.
12 times more likely to-- >> To be on the transplant
wait list in the state of Maryland
than to ever be in the position of being an organ donor.
So, it's very rare that someone's in the position
to actually donate organs.
>> Let's talk just a little bit about
whose eligible to donate their organs.
For example, can people who have diabetes
be eligible as organ donors?
>> That's a great question.
I think that's probably the question I get the most.
You'll hear someone say,
"Oh I've had diabetes, there's no way I can donate."
You can have diabetes, lupus, multiple sclerosis,
muscular dystrophy, Lou Gehrig's disease,
there's a long list, and still be eligible to donate organs.
What we tell people is, designate yourself as a donor
and we would evaluate if you are in the position
of being an organ donor.
But very few things rule you out to be an organ donor.
>> If I elect to do that,
are there any costs that would be
associated with that for me?
>> So designating yourself as an organ donor
is free to do, and if you are in the position
and become an actual organ donor,
there's no cost to the family
or the insurance companies incur no cost.
>> If I decide to do this
and they harvest my organs after I die,
can I still have a casket that's open during a funeral?
>> That's a great question.
We always use the word recovery or procurement.
So if your organs are recovered and tissue,
you can have an open casket funeral,
donate all organs and all tissue.
The body is very well respected.
>> Just review for me one more time
which of the organs are eligible for donation.
>> For a deceased donation after your death,
you are eligible to donate heart, lungs,
liver, kidney, pancreas, and intestine.
The liver can even be split
and given to two separate people.
>> What's the difference then,
what organs can we use living donation for?
>> Living donation is always exciting.
Living donation could be one kidney,
part of your pancreas,
part of your lung or even a whole lung,
and even part of your intestine.
Then of course, with the liver can also be donated
through, one lobe of your liver can be through
living donation as well.
>> I think we have some animation
that we'd like to show with regards to
this particular issue.
>> Narrator: Up to 80% of a
person's liver can be removed >> Elizabeth: Oops, now there
it is. >> Narrator: safely
in select patients.
Thankfully, our liver is one of the organs
in the body that can regenerate
or regrow back to its original size.
So when you remove a large portion of a patient's liver,
the remaining section will actually compensate and grow
to provide the same functions of the original liver.
>> We do have another question,
but before we get to that,
I'd like to segue into something
that's kind of personal.
You had a liver transplant.
>> I did. I am so fortunate that I had a liver transplant
almost 24 years ago.
I was sick for the first 25 years of my life,
and now I've been healthy for the last 24 years.
There's nothing like organ donation
and transplantation in medicine.
You take someone who has died, they can save eight lives.
You take someone who is terminally ill,
and they can be 100 percent cured.
Standing here, and I now have four children,
I have a wife, I've been a nurse at Hopkins for 20 years.
I am one person.
It's just amazing to be a part of this.
>> It's really remarkable, and I actually
celebrate that along with you.
If I decide I want to be an organ donor,
what do I need to tell my family?
>> People often talk about designating themselves
as a donor through the website or at the DMV,
but the most important part of this is,
talk to your family about your wishes,
all end-of-life options, and donation is one of them.
Let your family know specifically
what you're desires are with organ and tissue donation.
>> Age limits, are there age limits
to my ability to be a donor?
>> Great question, we've had newborns go in
to donate kidneys, and we've even had patients
as old as 75, 80 years old, go in to donate as well.
So we often tell people, just designate yourself,
and at that time, we'll evaluate.
>> One thing I've heard an awful lot about
has been sale of organs.
Is it possible to actually sell my organs if I want to?
>> Another myth, a misconception that is
perpetuated on TV and the internet.
In this country, you cannot sell organs.
It is against the law and it doesn't happen.
It's one of those things that
people talk about and read about,
but it just doesn't happen in the United States.
>> Okay, so I can't sell them.
But don't the states offer incentives for organ donation?
>> So currently, Maryland passed a law through,
if you are a living donor, you now do get a tax credit,
and I believe it's over $6,000,
so it's a great incentive if you are
willing to give an organ to someone else,
you do get a tax credit.
>> You've been in this biz for a while.
I would ask you what you perceive
as the major barriers to people
signing up to be organ donors.
>> I think social media and the movies in general,
the way they really perpetuate
those myths and misconceptions
is really the biggest struggle.
They watch a movie, this,
and that's what they believe.
If I had to pick one thing,
it would to be educate yourself on this topic.
Someone's life could literally depend on it.
>> One of the myths, of course, that's perpetuated out there
is the idea that somehow, if you've signed up
as an organ donor, physicians won't really make
every attempt to save your life
if you come in under those circumstances.
>> Two biggest misconceptions: One is that.
The other is, if I put the heart on my license,
I'm going to be an organ donor.
It's extremely rare, at Johns Hopkins
we had 1,000 and only 15 to 20 organ donors a year.
In order to be an organ donor,
you have to be in an ICU on a ventilator.
If anyone dies outside of the hospital
not on a ventilator in the ICU, you cannot donate organs.
So the hospital staff, EMTs, first responders,
never think about donation.
We save a life and you're not a potential donor
until you are.
>> Maybe you could explain to all of us
why it is that someone who dies outside the hospital
is unable to donate their organs?
>> Well if you die outside the hospital
and not on a ventilator,
your organs are not receiving any oxygen,
so they're not transplantable.
So as soon you die, the organs die with you,
and they wouldn't be safe for transplant.
>> Are we pushing that limit a little bit?
I think I've heard things about
ways to preserve organs, maybe even in the field.
>> No, there's no way to preserve an organ after you die.
There are ways to preserve organs after we recover them,
so if we recover a heart, we can oxygenate that organ
for a little bit on a machine,
and kidneys, and they're doing it with liver as well.
But there's no way, once you die,
to preserve those organs.
>> Could I leave this decision in the hands of my family?
Why couldn't they make that decision for me after I'm dead?
>> Well, they can, so the answer is, they can.
If you don't designate yourself as a donor,
which we hope you make that decision in advance,
then we would defer to your family,
so they would make that decision on your behalf.
>> Are there ever circumstances
where the person who receives an organ
will know who the donor was?
>> The answer is yes.
It's a anonymous, but I chose to meet my donor family,
so I wrote a letter, I give it to our
organ procurement organization,
which is Living Legacy in Maryland,
and this is the same throughout the country,
they contact my donor family,
and the donor family was willing to meet me.
So we actually met and we do charity events together.
>> That is so wonderful. >> It's such an amazing...
It was such an amazing moment to meet my donor family.
To come full circle and say thank you.
It meant everything to me, and my donor family,
Linda, Kim, and Courtney are my donor family,
and it's just amazing to have contact with them.
>> That is amazing. >> It's amazing.
>> It's wonderfully generous of you.
How about for people who's religious beliefs
seem to say to them, "You really can't
give up your organs"?
>> We do occasionally hear that.
We will hear people cite religion
as a reason not being able to donate.
All major religions support donation.
If someone cites religion as being a reason not to donate,
we encourage them to talk to their religious leaders
and work through that process.
>> We invite you to send your questions in.
We'd love to hear what your thoughts are about this,
or even if you have something you'd like to share
relative to donation, we'd really love to hear it.
We have some things under way here at Johns Hopkins
with regard to living donation,
and I know we're not talking a lot about that,
but paired living donation and other ways
to try to get some of those folks
who are waiting for kidneys off that transplant list.
>> Mm-hm, yeah, we- there's actually a national push
to kinda, it's a pool of people who need kidneys,
you put your name nationally,
and they're able to pair people.
So if I wanted to give a kidney to my sister,
I wasn't eligible, I could give a kidney to someone else,
and they could give a kidney to my sister,
and we've been able to transplant so many
people that we wouldn't otherwise.
Hepatitis B, HIV, and Hep C are not
rule outs for donation any longer,
so we're seeing people who have HIV go in
to donate organs as well,
and Hopkins was the first hospital,
of course, to do that.
>> And here's some more nerdy science,
and I have to admit, I'm a nerdy scientist,
so I have to ask this question.
Something else has been pioneered here
is removing antibodies from someone's blood
so that that organ rejection doesn't happen as often.
>> Absolutely, there's a lot of people
who are sensitive to organs, so there's ways
at Johns Hopkins that we're able to
desensitize people so they're able to get that organ.
It's amazing. >> How about the other part of
organ transplantation which is,
you have to kind of suppress
someone's immune system so >> Mm-hm.
>> that it doesn't reject the organ.
>> Actually, that's a great question.
It's really not the organ transplant itself
that is the issue.
It's the medications and what it does
to your immune system.
The infections and the things, the side effects.
I think what science is doing and the way we're going
is perfecting and improving the medications,
that's gonna be what improves this process
and longevity in life.
>> Things to look forward to. >> Uh-huh.
I'm hoping for another 50 years, let's just say that.
(laughs)
>> Thank you so much for joining us
on this Facebook Live event at Johns Hopkins.
We hope we piqued your interest,
that you're interested in learning more
about organ donation.
>> Thank you so much for having me today, Elizabeth.
>> I think we have a website that we'd like to visit.
>> So here in Maryland, you can visit
DonateLifeMaryland.org or you can go to
Donate Life Net nationally.
You go to these websites and I really hope
that you click on Misconceptions and Facts
about organ donation and at the bottom,
you can click "Register to be an organ donor".
You don't have to go to the DMV,
that's another myth.
You can go to advanced directive
or I would suggest the website
and you can enter your information
and designate yourself as a organ donor.