We have a 3-pronged approach to tackle this.
“The significant variance between the 31% of Californians who register to be donors while applying for driver licenses and the 72% who actually donate at the time of death suggests a concern: when people are applying for a driver’s license, a significant majority either feel under-informed, are misinformed, oppose donation, or simply do not choose to register at that time. Yet, when confronting the unavoidable end of life and the need to make final decisions, individuals and families seek and are receptive to information that prompts them to choose to donate . . . We must choose as providers of care, society, and as a state to invest in vigorous and targeted school-based education for teenagers before they get their first license and culturally-informed public education programs to assist recent immigrants to find the value and choose to donate as 80+% of native-born, adult Americans have already found.”
(Source: Donate Life California website)
“The significance of misinformation is not merely theoretical; as reported in the 2010 Donate Life America/Astellas independent poll a shocking 52 percent of people incorrectly believe that doctors may not try as hard to save their lives if they know they wish to be organ or tissue donors, that 48 percent believe a black market exists in the U.S. for organs and tissue, and a remarkably high 61 percent mistakenly believe it may be possible for a brain dead person to recover from his or her injuries.”
(Source: Donate Life California website)
Other common misconceptions include:
Myth: Donation disfigures the body.
REALITY: Donation does not disfigure the body or change the way it looks in a casket. Donation is a type of surgery and every donor is treated with great care, respect and dignity during the donation process, including careful reconstruction of one’s body. Donation as a rule does not delay funeral plans.
Myth: My loved one cannot have an open casket funeral if they are an organ and tissue donor.
REALITY: Your loved one can be a donor and still have an open casket for the funeral. The clothes chosen for the viewing cover any sign of donation. For organ donation, surgery lines are fully covered by all clothing except for a low cut or v-neck top. Skin donation takes skin from the back and legs and is not visible with clothing. A stand-in plastic bone is used to allow the shape of the legs and arms to remain the same for bone donation. For eye donation, a plastic cap is placed over the eye to maintain the shape of the closed eyelid.”
(Source: http://health.mo.gov/living/organdonor/myths.php#myth3)
Teens who are applying for their first drivers’ license frequently made misguided decisions about organ donation and are a large audience for teaching about the organ donation program. By educating teenagers in Drivers’ Education programs, we will be providing them with the tools that they need to make informed decisions about whether or not they truly want to be an organ/tissue donor.
Suggested improvements to the California DMV can also be made in order to facilitate the increase in the number of official registered organ donors in California. (See “Opt-in vs. Opt-out” page for more details.)