house had a good point

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about giving less then ideal organs to less then ideal recipcants

LOL, that's why i'm not an organ donor... At times I can really dislike the genral population but never enough to curse someone hoping for a miracle with my faulty worn out and abused parts.

I quite agree with his reasoning "a fat old sloppy heart is better than no heart at all" (if I remember his phrasing correctly). The "mint" organs should go to those recipients who have the better odds of long-term use, but why simply throw out those organs that might not quite be up to par? I wouldn't think those without hope for the prime organs would pass up the opportunity for one of the "inferior" organs.

Not that it always happens this way, but I thought organs went to the person highest up on the list who was a "best match" for the tissue type profile. Any transplant will require immune suppression therapy to prevent it being rejected after the transplant. The better the match, the less medication needed and the lower the odds of rejection happening.

"Inferior" organs would likely just fail absent a load of very expensive immune suppression drugs...which only creates other problems.

And then there's the problem of who decides who's more deserving? Sure, there are obvious cases (alcoholic that just killed 4 teenagers while driving under the influence vs. 12 year old kid), but far too often it would be about personal opinions. Truthfully, most anyone who thinks they're qualified to do this should by no means be allowed to.

I think you are right about the process, list rank vs best match, but some people are denied a place on the list based on certain factors (cancer, age, self-destructive behaiviour). I think the topic of the post is referring to those people who aren't allowed a chance on the list and the organs that don't meet the stringent criteria for donation.

House makes sense about a lot more of things.... It's one of the reasons I used to be a fan.

Yeah, but that's the point. A person not on the list would not be wise to accept an organ deemed unfit for donation. Even if it worked, the odds of it lasting very long isn't high and then there's the cost of drugs to keep it functioning for as long as possible.

It's not like getting a replacement transmission from a junkyard for an old car rather than buying a new or certified rebuilt one.

Actually, I would disagree with your example. I don't think there's enough information there to make a determination. But then, I would base any organ transplant decisions entirely on the severity of the case that is waiting for the transplant. I.E. the person that "needs" it the soonest gets it the soonest. I would not allow my emotions or opinions to change that. If the 12 year old can survive longer and wait longer for a transplant, and the "drunk driver" is just about to die without the transplant... the transplant goes to the driver.

House says: Patients lie.

So true.

ruveyn

He lies a lot himself.
... Fair game?

I thought it was implied they were in the same state (both needing an immediate heart transplant, both a donor/recipient match, etc.), so my mistake.

I fail to see why people who are poor cantidates for organ replacement get them at all. Most of the "poor cantidates" are idiots who have voluntarily abused their bodies into a decrepit state (eg smokers, the chronically unfit and those who treat their bodies like crap). Giving these people transplants is a waste of time and money.

The only people who should receive transplants are those who are likely to be successful cantidates - usually as a function of demonstrating they will keep up their end of the rehabilitation process.

I remember a tv show(doco) where a father was in the process of giving a kidney to his daughter(who was 21 ish), but when they were in the process of removing the kidney from the father to give to the daughter they found that the kidney had something wrong with it that rendered it unsuitable for his daughter(from what I could understand the doctors felt that the kidney would not last for the entire lifetime with a young patient), so what they did was they gave it to a 70 year old woman .
Another kidney was found for the daughter.