Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission

A critical controversy surrounds the type of allowable interventions to be carried out in patients who are potential organ donors, in an attempt to improve organ perfusion and successful transplantation. The main goal is to transplant an organ in conditions as close as possible to its physiological...

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Main Authors:	Frati, Paola, Fineschi, Vittorio, Gulino, Matteo, Montanari Vergallo, Gianluca, Di Luca, Natale Mario, Turillazzi, Emanuela
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4122128/

id	pubmed-4122128
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-41221282014-08-14 Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission Frati, Paola Fineschi, Vittorio Gulino, Matteo Montanari Vergallo, Gianluca Di Luca, Natale Mario Turillazzi, Emanuela Review Article A critical controversy surrounds the type of allowable interventions to be carried out in patients who are potential organ donors, in an attempt to improve organ perfusion and successful transplantation. The main goal is to transplant an organ in conditions as close as possible to its physiological live state. “Elective ventilation” (EV), that is, the use of ventilation for the sole purpose of retrieving the organs of patients close to death, is an option which offsets the shortage of organ donation. We have analyzed the legal context of the dying process of the organ donor and the feasibility of EV in the Italian context. There is no legal framework regulating the practice of EV, neither is any real information given to the general public. A public debate has yet to be initiated. In the Italian cultural and legislative scenario, we believe that, under some circumstances (i.e., the expressed wishes of the patient, even in the form of advance directives), the use of EV does not violate the principle of beneficence. We believe that the crux of the matter lies in the need to explore the real determination and will of the patient and his/her orientation towards the specific aim of organ donation. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014 2014-07-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4122128/ /pubmed/25126582 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/973758 Text en Copyright © 2014 Paola Frati et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Frati, Paola Fineschi, Vittorio Gulino, Matteo Montanari Vergallo, Gianluca Di Luca, Natale Mario Turillazzi, Emanuela
spellingShingle	Frati, Paola Fineschi, Vittorio Gulino, Matteo Montanari Vergallo, Gianluca Di Luca, Natale Mario Turillazzi, Emanuela Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission
author_facet	Frati, Paola Fineschi, Vittorio Gulino, Matteo Montanari Vergallo, Gianluca Di Luca, Natale Mario Turillazzi, Emanuela
author_sort	Frati, Paola
title	Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission
title_short	Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission
title_full	Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission
title_fullStr	Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission
title_full_unstemmed	Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission
title_sort	ethical and legal implications of elective ventilation and organ transplantation: “medicalization” of dying versus medical mission
description	A critical controversy surrounds the type of allowable interventions to be carried out in patients who are potential organ donors, in an attempt to improve organ perfusion and successful transplantation. The main goal is to transplant an organ in conditions as close as possible to its physiological live state. “Elective ventilation” (EV), that is, the use of ventilation for the sole purpose of retrieving the organs of patients close to death, is an option which offsets the shortage of organ donation. We have analyzed the legal context of the dying process of the organ donor and the feasibility of EV in the Italian context. There is no legal framework regulating the practice of EV, neither is any real information given to the general public. A public debate has yet to be initiated. In the Italian cultural and legislative scenario, we believe that, under some circumstances (i.e., the expressed wishes of the patient, even in the form of advance directives), the use of EV does not violate the principle of beneficence. We believe that the crux of the matter lies in the need to explore the real determination and will of the patient and his/her orientation towards the specific aim of organ donation.
publisher	Hindawi Publishing Corporation
publishDate	2014
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4122128/
_version_	1613121009993383936

Ethical and Legal Implications of Elective Ventilation and Organ Transplantation: “Medicalization” of Dying versus Medical Mission

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