How does the medical team decide to recommend a child for transplant?
There’s certain criteria that each program has, it’s called Patient Selection Criteria. And each program has a definition as to when it’s appropriate to list and when it is not, what the normal indications are, what the contra-indications are, and that is available to anyone who requests it. Each transplant program follows that, so it’s nonbiased and nonjudgmental and consistent through each patient. Every family goes through an evaluation which involves many consultations, different tests, blood work, immunization evaluations, maybe a chest X-Ray or other similar type of test. And then the team meets, and they go through all of the information and make a determination as to what’s best for this patient: to list, to not list. If they don’t list, they give suggestions as to what they need to do in order to be listed, or maybe the patient isn’t sick enough to be listed, which is good news. And then to list someone, it’s simply going into a computer and providing information which places the child on the national waitlist.
Laura O’Melia, RN, MSN, CPNP, Director of Transplant Nursing