Myths vs. Facts

Incorrect
When you go to the hospital for treatment, doctors focus on saving your life, not sacrificing you to save someone else. Medical professionals will do everything they can to save your life. In fact, the doctors who work to save your life aren’t even the same doctors involved with organ donation & recovery.

Incorrect
The organ donation process does not begin until death has been declared by a physician. A clinical examination is legally required in the determination of brain death, which includes tests for a response from all 12 cranial nerves. People do not recover from brain death. Death is pronounced by the attending physician, who works independently from the transplant team.

Incorrect
It is illegal to buy and sell organs in the United States. There is no documented case of this ever happening. This is an urban myth and nothing more.

Incorrect
A donor’s family is not charged for donation. Once consent for donation has been established, all medical costs associated with organ recovery are billed to the organ procurement organization. Costs associated with organ recovery are passed on to the transplant recipient or their insurance.

Incorrect
The vast majority of religions in the United States support organ donation as a charitable act. If you have questions about your religion and organ donation, ask your faith leader.

Incorrect
In Virginia, the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA) means that a donor’s decision in a registry, in a will or in other legal documentation cannot be overturned by family members after the donor’s death. Only when there is no documented decision to donate will a patient’s family be asked to make the decision.

Incorrect
There is no defined cut-off age for organ donation. Organs have been successfully transplanted from donors in their 80s and 90s. The decision to use donor organs is based on strict medical criteria, not age. In fact, a large percentage of donors are over the age of 50.

Incorrect
If a minor wishes to be an organ donor, their parents can give their consent. After all, children need organ transplants too, and they usually require smaller organs than those an adult can provide. Virginia law allows people 13-18 to register their donation decision in the Virginia Donor Registry, but until you’re 18, a parent or guardian must consent to donation (even if you have registered).

Incorrect
Organ, eye and tissue donation typically does not interfere with having an open-casket funeral. Most often the donor’s body is clothed for burial, so there are no visible signs of organ or tissue donation. Even after eye donation, artificial eyes replace the donated eyes, the lids are closed and the appearance is quite natural. After bone donation, a rod replaces the donated bone to maintain the shape of the limb.

Incorrect
Recovery professionals can look up your organ donation status when you register at the Virginia DMV or sign up online at DonateLifeVirginia.org.

Incorrect
Donors are treated respectfully by the recovery teams. Organs are removed in a sterile operating room by surgeons and other highly trained medical professionals. After the surgery, the body is sutured and cared for just like it would be during a surgical procedure on a living person. Like organs from the body, eyes and tissues are recovered in a sterile environment.

Incorrect
Rich and famous people aren’t given any priority when it comes to allocating organs. It might seem that way because of the amount of publicity generated when celebrities receive a transplant, but they aren’t treated any differently. Each transplant candidate is matched against the donor characteristics using the UNOS computer system, which ranks potential recipients in order according to blood type, size compatibility, length of time on the waiting list, severity of illness, tissue match, immune status, and the distance between the potential recipient and the donor.