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Michelle-Transplant Assistant

My name is Michelle and I am a transplant Assistant at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. I have been at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for almost four years now and I enjoy what I do very much. Before I was hired to work for the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in October 2013 I did my clinical externship there for my medical assisting degree. I was so touched and inspired by transplant recipients and donors that I became a registered organ donor myself.

In August of 2016 I made the decision to go back to college and get my degree in nursing. I am currently attending college at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. One of my first assignments for my English class was to write about a topic that inspires me most. I chose organ donation.

We were allowed to share our topics and papers with the class. My English class was so inspired and learned so much about organ donation that the next night of class, I had several of my classmates come up and tell me that they had gone online and registered to be organ donors. My experience with this is that there are a lot of false misleading information about organ donation out there.  I believe that this is one of the reasons that a lot of people say “no” to organ donation.

One of the biggest questions I came across when sharing my paper, was my classmates were all under the impression that if they were registered organ donors and they were in a car accident, That they would not receive the proper care they deserved or there would be no attempt to save their life. This is not true. All life is important and just because you are an organ donor does not mean that your life is any less valuable or important than someone who is in need of your organs.

I was very happy and felt great that by sharing my paper I was able to clarify this concern and a lot of things up and in doing so I was able to inspire others to say “yes”.

There is no greater gift than life. If I can just reach out and get at least one person to say “yes” then I feel that I am making a difference. Just that one person saying “yes” to organ donation gives several others a second chance of life. By becoming an organ donor not only are you giving someone else a second chance at life but it is a way for a part of you to live on. We can’t take our organs with us when we go and we no longer are in need of them, so why not give them to someone else who needs them?