The enlightening lectures to the ordinary people and medical stuffs about the organ donation on the neurosurgeon’s neutral standpoint are effective for the futural development of the transplantation medicine.

Shun-ichi Yoshikai

¹Department of Neurosurgery, Shin-Kokura Hospital, Kitakyushu, Japan

The number of the organ donations is quite unsatisfactory and the announcement about the donation is still poor in Japan. One of the major reasons is that the almost Japanese people including medical doctors have longstanding misunderstandings about the donation due to the negative campaigns of the mass media since the first cardiac transplantation in 1968 in Japan and also due to the incorrect or malicious information about donation widely spread through the internet. The typical misunderstandings are: the donor’s body is brought away for months or never returns, and the body is cut in pieces at the organ extractions, the agreement of the donation is forced and pressed by the transplantation coordinators, the cost of the transplantation is huge and the fundraising activities are necessary even in the domestic transplantation etc.. In order to resolve these issues, the Japanese transplantation academic meetings and networks have tried to announce the correct information, however, the discussions remain stopped at the very beginning issue, the brain death is really an individual’s death or not. In addition, the emergency room doctors hesitate the confirmation of the patient’s donor-card possession or the proposal of the option because of their personal prejudices to the organ donation. The author is a neurosurgeon with many experiences of the patients’ cadaveric donations, and has promoted the enlightenment activities and published a book especially about the organ donations on a neutral standpoint. For example, the author does not accept the brain death is the individual’s death medically, however, the author accepts it legally. According to these neutrality and objectivity, the author’s lectures are easily acceptable to the audience. The enlightening activities do not bring any quick effects, however, it is important to educate them to be involved in the organ donation on the neutrally and objectively.