Donating Nontraditional Body Parts: Will Organ Donation Become more Complicated?

Thanks to today's technological advances, doctors believe that we may not be too far off from actually donating face and hands for possible transplants. Though the government plans on regulating the donation of these organs, people will be able to donate such nontraditional body parts in order to help reconstruct the lives and health of individuals that may have suffered through an intense accident or complicated health issue.  

These days, both face and hand transplants are nothing new. 

Richard Lee Norris, a Virginia resident who was injured by an excruciating gun accident in 1997 in which he lost parts of his face, teeth, tongue and jaw, was given new life through the first full face transplant conducted at the University of Maryland Medical Center in March 2010. The 36-hour surgery helped Norris regain a normal life by being able to brush his teeth and shave again, as well as regaining some of the sense of smell he had lost due to injury.

Though the first hand transplant was attempted in Ecuador in 1964, the patients tissue cells suffered from transplant rejection. The first successful attempt led to reattaching New Jersey native Matthew Scott's hand in 1999, who had lost the body part during a fireworks accident.

Since these incidents, other procedures continue to be performed in order to help individuals in need through transplantation. However, the government stresses the importance of regulating the donation process for the safety of medical staff and patients, alike.

"Joe Blow is not going to know that now an organ is defined as also including a hand or a face," said Suzanne McDiarmid, who chairs the committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, accoridng to USA Today. "The consent process for the life-saving organs should not, must not, be derailed by a consent process for a different kind of organ, that the public might think of as being very different from donating a kidney or a heart or a liver."

UNOS, which currently regulates the U.S. transplant program, will be in charge of helping to create these new policies in the upcoming months that will ultimately lead to these non-traditional donations.

Due to the rarity of these transplants, at this time, there is no standard way of getting on a transplant list or finding a location for the best treatment, surgical option or organ match. To make the system more accurate, helpful and easy for those in need, the government has stated that hand and face transplants must be regulated by the same strict standards set by UNOS. This would mean that the list would help recipients be matched with the proper tissues via skin color, gender, size and age.