Organ Donation: The Essentials for Healthcare Professionals (FutureLearn)

On the course, created in collaboration with the NHS Blood and Transplant service, you will learn about the basic principles and processes involved in organ donation from the legal aspects, to types of donation, to the importance of communication with families.

What topics will you cover?

- Fundamentals of organ donation

- Criteria for donation

- Legal and ethical issues around organ donation

- The role of the Specialist Nurse in Organ Donation

- Donations after Death by Neurological Criteria (Brainstem Death) or Circulatory Death

- Checking donor suitability

- The organ retrieval process

- Family care and follow up

Learning on this course

You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

- Explain the importance and basic principles of organ donation.

- Summarise the types of donation, organs which can be donated and the absolute contraindications for donation.

- Identify the key processes associated with organ donation such as referral, family consent, patient assessment, management of potential donors and organ allocation.

- Describe assessing and diagnosing death by neurological criteria and management of a brainstem dead patient.

- Evaluate the importance of laws and guidance that governs the process of organ donation and transplantation.

- Describe tissue donation and how this is facilitated in UK.

- Reflect upon the importance of family communication in the organ donation process.

Who is the course for?

This course is for Specialist Nurses in Organ Donation (SNODs), and healthcare professionals such as nurses and doctors of all levels of experience who wish to either update their knowledge or improve their awareness of the subject, for personal or CPD reasons. It will also be useful for students training to become healthcare professionals.