Hi Everyone! I am here with another update on my incredible internship with the Gift of Life Donor Program! This week was another eventful week with a field trip to MTF Biologics in Jessup, PA! Below is an outline of my week!
Monday (June 19): Today, we arrived to work early in order to complete some reading on donation and brain death before our meetings. We met with Gweneth O'Shaughnessy, the vice president of Hospital Development. We received an overview of the hospital development model and methodology. We learned about their standard processes and the importance of following the process in order to serve as a dual advocate for the donor family and transplant recipient, as well as improve the rates of donation and transplantation. We also took part in a didactic overview of the DATA department and an overview of the program used to manage all donors and recipients. This meeting helped familiarize us interns, with a data system that will help in our research project we are conducting through Gift of Life.
Tuesday (June 20): Today, we attended our first staff meeting. We were able to hear from a kidney recipient who has been able to grow their photography and no longer lives in pain or is burdened by dialysis appointments. You never really realize how important these life-saving gifts are until you hear these stories up close and personal. The recipient described their life before the transplant as a part-time job where they would spend 20-30 hours per week receiving dialysis so they might live. After hearing from the recipient, the meeting went on to remind the staff of the goals and pathways each department can take to ensure that Gift of Life is following its mission statement and remaining in line with its goals. I really enjoyed the portion of the meeting where staff members nominated and recognized their colleagues for representing the core values that Gift of Life holds by going out of their way to help others. After the staff meeting, we had another meeting with the DATA department and were able to receive helpful information and tips as we continue our research. My research project focuses on the changes in transportation costs and examines how liver and heart allocation has changed since Policy changes that changed local allocation to expand to 250 nautical miles between donor hospitals and transplant centers.
Wednesday (June 21): Today was really awesome! We were able to visit The Lions Eyebank of Deleware Valley (Soon to be called Altruvision). I learned that the very first cornea transplant occurred in 1905. Cornea transplants have a 97% success rate and over 50,000 cornea transplants have been performed. An interesting fact I learned was that 95% of adults are in favor of cornea transplants, however, only 54% of adults are registered as organ/tissue donors. Unfortunately, every 9 minutes another name is added to the list in need of life-saving organs and tissues. Each donor can gift up to 8 people their lives with life-saving organs and gift sight to two people through cornea donation. In addition, one donor can gift over 100 people life-enhancing bone and tissue grafts (bypass/tendons for walking or moving/bone repair/burn patients). To the right is a photo of the hand-made
Remembrance Butterfly which is gifted to donor families. The butterfly cut out in the center is given to recipients.
We also were able to observe the portion of the cornea which is donated for people who only need the bottom three layers of their cornea replaced. The eye bank technician skillfully separated the bottom three layers of the five in a cornea. It was amazing how the portion of cells recovered rolled up like a little scroll. The outer rim is browned because this is a diabetic cornea saved for research. After our meeting with the eye bank, we met with Mr. Howard Nathan of Gift of Life and talked to him about our incredible experiences thus far.
Thursday (June 22): Today we drove with Laura Robinson to MTF (Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation) in Jessup, PA. MTF is a processing foundation that processes and creates bone and skin grafts for recipients. When we first arrived, we were able to see where they stored the donor tissue so that it might be transformed into the grafts pictured below. We were then introduced to their quality control staff and were able to observe the staff members packaging and preparing the processed gifts to send to hospitals who will then use those gifts to help patients. We were then shown the MTF lab where they test for infectious diseases and contamination with all sorts of fancy machines. We were allowed to put on a lab coat and see some machines up close. We were not able to actually see the processing as the risk for contamination has to be strictly monitored for the safety of recipients. After the lab, we were given a tour of where they actually create bone and skin grafts. The tools they use are incredible, along with their cleaning, clock-in, and clock-out schedules. Everyone is scheduled specifically to decrease the number of people in the deacon room (The place where they put on these super hazmat-like suits and gloves), lunch break, and de-gowning procedures. One of the processing staff did a show-and-tell for us as we peered at her processing room through the glass. She showed us a completed Achilles tendon graft and a quadriceps tendon.
Finally, we were shown their processed goods quality control, where every gift is looked over before being sent to the packaging/mailing department. This day was amazingly educational. Seeing MTF after completing rotations in tissue was really cool as we were able to actually see the products that are created out of the tissue we watched be recovered. There are a lot of pictures of MTF. I hope you enjoy the educational photos that show that gifts can be created from bone and skin tissue-
I have put them at the bottom of the blogFriday (June 23): Today, we focused on our project. I was able to examine the policies a little bit more and take notes on allocation stat differences between 2017-2020 and 2020-2023 for heart recipients. My reasoning for using 2020 is because that is when the policy for heart allocation changed (January 9, 2020).
Thank you so much for reading! I'll update again next week! This coming week is looking exciting so stay tuned!
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