How Organ Donation And Transplantation Works

When a person dies or is declared brain dead, it is the hospital's responsibility to find out if that individual is an organ donor. If he or she is, their organs will be kept viable via ventilator or other mechanisms until they can be harvested. Most of the individuals whose organs are donated will have died from an external trauma or head injury. Those with serious illnesses such as cancer usually do not make good candidates.

Many factors are taken into consideration in determining what organs are viable including how long the person has been deceased as well the individual's physical health before he or she died. In many cases, procurement specialists and doctors have roughly 24 hours to remove and transplant the organs.