Um - eh - when you die, you become a cadaver. AKA dead body. I do understand the "brain dead" aspect with functioning organs, and I do understand we have the ability to donate things like a kidney, etc. That said, how many organs and/or other tissues can they harvest from someone dying or recently dead of/with the Covid?
Woody
Not sure on the cadaver semantics as I’ve never heard them used in the hospital before. Cadavers are in the morgue waiting for transfer & are commonly referred to as cadavers in college A & P labs. A brain dead person with still functioning body is referred to as Mr. Smith or “the patient in icu room 211 & Lifeshare will be taking him to the OR for harvesting.” Never had a patient referred to as a cadaver in over 40 yrs. Or if the family wants to remove life support & not transplant, he/she is still referred to as the same as any other patient in the unit. At least in my clinical experience. Maybe technically the definition is different, but I’m not going to take the time to look it up.
The covid transplant question is a good one. Have no idea because it’s so new. If I had to bet, I would say none. Maybe in the future for kidneys or heart, but never lungs due to the ARdS clinical picture. Dying covid patients have lungs that don’t work anymore, & sometimes have to go to ECMO. Transplant docs want healthy lungs. And some covid patients even get lung transplants because of the severity of their lung damage.
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