Student Congress: Organ Donation and Transplantation – Belgium (BeMSA)

Name of the activity: Student Congress: Organ Donation and Transplantation

Country/NMO: Belgium (BeMSA)

Program: Organ, Marrow & Tissue Donation

Type of the activity: Education

Focus area:

Organ donation, Tissue donation, excluding blood donation

Problem statement:

Belgium is one of the only countries in which every citizen is by law an organ donor but only a minor fraction of the organs will eventually be donated as the traumatised family still needs to approve the ‘taking-out’ of the organs.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

Students
By informing the next generations we hope to increase the national awareness about the necessity of organ donation. What it takes and how it goes. By increasing the knowledge we hope to lower this threshold.

Objectives and indicators of success:

Students’ knowledge about organ donation and transplantation in Belgium

Methodology:

Working group (three really active participants) contacted the transplantation-council of our university who have been trying for years to get their discipline embedded in the lessons but were not able to establish anything yet. Thus they were eager to help. We established twice two parallel sessions (lectures about organ donation and transplantation), break and reception
1) organ and tissue donation: laws, legal aspects, how to declare someone capable of donation, lists of people applying for transplantation.
2) communication about organ donation towards the family, how to convince them to say yes to the donation.
3) lung and heart transplantation
4) abdominal transplantation

Plans for evaluation:

amount of participants
If possible a survey afterwards (What did they think about the evening? What did they learn?)