ABSTRACT
Health care workers placed in the situation are acutely aware of the ethical conflicts involved. The direction nationally is to separate the procurement agencies from the transplant teams to reduce the potential conflicts. In the private hospital, the physician who approaches the family is often the on-duty surgeon or an internist called in to take care of the acute patient. Medical examiners are therefore unwilling to release a body under their jurisdiction to be dismembered, as the process may destroy vital information which might be needed in a criminal case. If the patient has died from a nontraumatic cause or the medical examiner has given permission for organ donation, the request to the family can proceed. The problems of personnel stress and dislike for requesting organ donation in patients whom they have failed to resuscitate, the societal conflicts inherent in the medical examiner statutes, and the conflicts of duty for the primary care provider can all be resolved.
