Anatomical Gifts

At Salt Lake City's University of Utah Hospital recently, a 57-year-old man lay dying after heart surgery. In his wallet was a card that read: "Desiring that humanity may benefit, I hereby give for any lawful medical purpose any specific organs or parts of my body determined to be medically usable . . . upon my death."

In the past, hospital authorities would have had to negotiate with the patient's next of kin to obtain organs for transplant, and the organs might have deteriorated and become unusable before permission was obtained. There was no such delay at the Utah hospital. Informed by the patient's wife about the donor card, surgeons were able to operate on him as soon as he was pronounced legally dead.* They removed both kidneys for transplant and both eyes for cornea grafts. Within a few hours, one of each was used for transplants in other patients.

The speedy donation was made possible by Utah's passage of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, which gives any patient the right to bequeath his body or organs for medical purposes. Because of almost nationwide adoption of the act--and changing public attitudes toward transplants--surgeons long frustrated by a shortage of donor organs now foresee an increase in the supply.

More help is on the way. President Nixon recently signed a bill applying the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act to the District of Columbia, and Delaware became the 48th state to adopt the law in less than two years. The legislatures of the two remaining states, Nebraska and Massachusetts, will take up the measure in their next sessions. Blair L. Sadler, an attorney with the National Institutes of Health and a principal promoter of the gift acts, reports many requests for donor cards, with wording similar to that used in Utah. He predicts many more organs will soon become available for transplants.

*A certification made by physicians who are not involved in any possible transplant.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.