Ethical Dilemmas in Controlled Organ Donation after Circulatory Death

Dr Alicia Perez-Blanco will discuss the ethical dilemmas related to two procedures currently used in intensive care units to recruit organ donors.

Discussing non therapeutic elective ventilation (EV) and non-heart-beating organ donation also called controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) Dr Alicia Perez-Blanco will discuss the ethical dilemmas related to two procedures when recruiting organ donors. 

Criticisms of cDCD are centred on debates around hastening the death of the patient through the administration of drugs or invasive interventions. By performing these procedures, physicians may be violating the Dead Donor Rule (DDR); an axiom that prohibits any intervention that bring about the death of the patient in order to retrieve a vital organ. Traditionally EV is considered to only favour a third party, thus criticisms focus on harming one patient’s interest for the benefit of another.

Using the foundational ethical principles of principlism (autonomy, and non-maleficence), the hardest ethical conflicts related to decision making on organ donation at the end of life will be discussed.

Dr Alicia Perez-Blanco is a specialist in Critical Care Medicine at the Intensive Care Unit in the Hospital Universitario de La Princesa (Madrid, Spain), and a bioethicist. She lectures in Stanford University on healthcare systems and bioethics.

The seminar will be presented by Dr Ana Manzano. For any other information, email: a.manzano@leeds.ac.uk

Location Details

Room 12.21 
Social Sciences Building
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT

View campus map