Joey Wahler (Host): April is Donate Life Month, so we're discussing how organ donation saves lives and how you can become a donor. Our guests, Jan Jones, a registered nurse and Critical Care Services Director for Southeast Georgia Health System; Marlene Witter, she's Hospital Liaison for LifeLink of Georgia; and Tracy Ide, Public Affairs Manager for the LifeLink Foundation.

This is Health Matters, a Southeast Georgia Health System podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm Joey Wahler. Hi there, Jan, Marlene, and Tracy. Thanks for being with us.

Tracy Ide: Hey, Joey.

Jan Jones, RN: Thank you. Good morning.

Marlene Witter: Good morning.

Host: Great to have you all aboard. And what's so wonderful about this conversation we're about to have is that we're talking organ donation from three ladies that know about it firsthand. You've all been personally touched by it. First, so much good comes from organ donation. So, I'm wondering what does organ donation mean to each of you? First, you, Tracy, your mom was a heart recipient and that actually moved you to work in this field, right?

Tracy Ide: That's right, Joey. So when I was 10 years old, my mom was diagnosed with a heart disease called cardiomyopathy, which is a heart disease that causes your heart to enlarge. Your heart is the size of your fist. And when she was diagnosed, hers was two times the size. So, that of course changed her lifestyle. If she was super mom before that, and was able to chaperone everything we did as young kids and was our chauffer, played the organ at church, and substitute taught at school, and she kind of did everything. But that disease that attacked her heart caused her not to have this great function with her heart. And she waited for eight years of changing her lifestyle and having to do some things differently. Until 2002, the doctors told her there was nothing else they could do medication-wise, that if she wanted to continue to live, she would need a heart transplant. She waited for six weeks, three weeks of that was in the hospital when we finally got the call that someone had said yes so that she could live. She got that transplant a week before I went to college and life changed again after that. Mom once again became super mom, back to doing the things that she couldn't for those years she was sick.

And when I graduated college, a job was open at LifeLink and I felt like it was my calling to step into that role. And I did. I have been here for 17 years, worked through my way through the Public Affairs Department, now to Public Affairs Manager. And after I'd been at LifeLink for several years, mom's heart started to fail, which caused her other organs to fail and she needed a heart and kidney transplant, which she received in 2012. So because of two individuals' decisions to say yes, my mom is here today, alive and well, healthy. She has three grandchildren that she was able to be sugar gram to. They call her sugar for short. And she loves being a grandmother. That is her passion. And she is here, again because two people said yes. And that brought me to LifeLink. And really, it gets me up in the mornings knowing that I'm not just doing a job, I'm doing a passion and giving back a little bit was given to my family through organ donation.

Host: And given to your family with multiple bites of the donation apple, right? That's a little bit unusual, isn't it?

Tracy Ide: It is. And we were very grateful to be able to connect with her first donor's family and learn about him and still stay connected to him to this day. We haven't heard from the second family. The process is confidential, so you don't know who your donor's family are or the recipient doesn't know anything and the donor family doesn't know the recipient is. But you can write letters and LifeLink facilitates that. And so, we are very grateful to be able to at least write a letter so the donor families know that mom's doing well.

Host: Amazing. Now, Jan, you've been with the health system for a long and successful career that began as a dialysis nurse, which started your experience with organ donation professionally, but you had a personal experience as well before that, that really made that connection initially, didn't it?

Jan Jones, RN: That's right, Joey. When my daughter was 10 years old, one of her very good friends received a heart transplant. And that was my first experience with any type of transplants. I went on to be a dialysis nurse, which was my first job out of college, and then was exposed to the patients needing transplants.

I then worked with a hospital in Atlanta that did transplants, and I worked in the units that actually got patients ready and received them back after their actual transplants for receiving it. And now, I'm here at Southeast Georgia Health System and working on the donation side of it. So, I've kind of been all the way around. My husband also recently received a corneal transplant that was unexpected. And this has also given him the gift of sight because we have two new grandchildren. And so, he's able to be able to see them and enjoy being around them.

Host: Marlene, let's move to you, and you're a veteran of both the U.S. Navy and the Michigan National Guard. So, I'm wondering, how did that experience help shape your road to LifeLink of Georgia, but then you had a personal experience with organ donation as well, right?

Marlene Witter: That's right. I was always in the medical field while I was in the Military. So, I was a trained scrub tech. Once I got out and was in the civilian ORs, I had the experience of being in the OR for the surgical recovery of the organ donors, and was very moved by it. And then, a little bit later on worked in Pathology, and we process specimens. And I thought, "Wow, there's so much to this."

So, the hospital I was working for had a contract with the OPO that I was working at prior to LifeLink. And I thought, you know, "This is really amazing. I think I'd like to be a part of this." So, I applied and was with the Michigan OPO, which is kind of like a sister to LifeLink of Georgia for 14 years, doing exactly what I do. It just so happens five years into working at that OPO, my family was faced with a decision. My brother was in the hospital on a ventilator and my parents had to make an end-of-life decision. It just so happens that my brother was on the donor registry and he didn't have a spouse, he didn't have any children. So, my parents were the ones who had to make that difficult decision. Well, thankfully he had already made that decision, and we moved forward with organ donation. Being a part of the process personally helped me understand how families feel in this situation and how they come to make these decisions.

Host: So, Tracy, your mom is an example of how, from what I understand, up to 75 lives can be impacted from a single donation. So nationally, give our audience please an idea of just how many lives are saved annually by organ and tissue donation.

Tracy Ide: That's a great question, Joey. So yes, one organ eye, and tissue donor has the potential to save or enhance up to 75 lives, and that's directly. But that doesn't account for the ripple effect of those like myself who are affected by a family member, so the recipients; family members, the community members, everybody who's touched by that donation. Last year of 2023, we had over 16,000 organ donors across the country that resulted in nearly 40,000 organ transplants. That's not counting the tissue transplants and the eye transplants as well. Imagine the ripple effect of that though, of those people who were impacted, those donor families who were able to know that their loved one's death wasn't in vain, that something good came out of it. And then, those recipients getting that second chance at life and their family members having their loved one to face life with still. The ripple effect is huge.

Host: Jan, some still don't register as organ donors, perhaps over misconceptions, for instance, fearing a recipient will take quote unquote priority over their own life. Can you dispel that and maybe any other misconceptions you feel are out there?

Jan Jones, RN: I think there's a misconception that depending on how wealthy somebody is or where they are as far as their sociability, that they end up maybe getting preference for that, but that's not the case. There is a national registry that everyone goes on, and I'm going to let Tracy talk to that because she knows more of the details about how people are chosen and how that process works.

Tracy Ide: Thanks, Jan. Yeah, so that is a big myth that you mentioned, Joey, of people have that stigma of other people are going to be prioritized over their own life. And there is the myth that if you put organ donor in a driver's license, the medical staff will see that and say, "Oh, let's not work to save this one because people can receive the organs," and that's absolutely false. The medical people taking care of in the hospital, the nurses and doctors, their goal is to save your life. Once they realize that they have done everything they can to do that and death is going to occur, that's when LifeLink steps in. And LifeLink is the one who talks to the family. They're the ones that fulfill the donation process. So, that's completely separate from the hospital and we need to make sure the community knows that, that it's separated and we do that for that reason to make sure there is no ethics involved of, "Oh, we're just going to let this one die to save someone else." That's never the case. It's always, "We're going to try to save the person who's in front of us first."

But we're all going to die at some point. We don't like to talk about it, but it's going to happen. We just want to make sure that when we do pass away, we can leave a legacy for somebody else. So, that's what we love to get out in the community, dispel some of those myths they hear. And I will tell you the medical shows on TV do not help us at all. They really push into some of these myths that are out there. But our role at LifeLink, part of that is to do some education, to make sure people know the true facts, and then let them make an informed decision. Donation is personal, and we're not going to tell the viewers that they have to sign up, like, "You have to do it right now." We want them to. But we really want them to make an informed decision to know that the decision they're making is what's best for them and for their family.

Host: Tracy, let me get you to follow up there. When you say that TV doesn't do your industry any favors, what do you mean by that?

Tracy Ide: So, there are some medical shows, and I will not name them by name, but you can use your imagination to think about them. Well, they will have the doctor being the one who's talking to the donor family. And then that doctor is the same one that goes and talks to the recipient family. Most of the time, the donor and the recipient are in the rooms right next to each other. That's really not how it works. The doctors and the nurses at the hospital are not allowed to talk about donation with the patient. That is solely left up to LifeLink and our very carefully trained staff who are absolutely amazing on walking through that process with families. Making sure our first goal at LifeLink is to make sure those families are taken care of, meaning emotionally and physically, that we are supporting them in the best possible way. And then, we talk about their loved one, what type of person they were, and then we broach the subject of donation. So, it's not like we're running right into the room going, "Your loved one's a registered donor," or "You have the option for donation. Let's talk about it." We really build up that relationship first to make sure the families are taken care of.

Host: Gotcha. Marlene, let's go back to you. And simply put, how does the organ donation process, in a nutshell, actually work?

Marlene Witter: Boy, that's hard, in a nutshell. So for organ donation, basically, the hospital and LifeLink have an agreement about certain triggers for patients. Typically, there are patients who are on a ventilator with some kind of major injury and families are at a point where they're making end-of-life decisions. So once those families are making end-of-life decisions, they call LifeLink. And at the right moment, like Tracy said, you know, we will have a conversation with legal next of kin. And sometimes, the potential donor may be on the registry, donor registry, and some of them may not. Sometimes that may help direct how the conversation goes.

So once we obtain authorization for donation, then we just kind of manage the donor. Basically, we try to stabilize the donor, they stay on the ventilator, family can still be at the bedside for the time frame. And basically, what we do is we work on placing those gifts with recipients. There's a contracted entity called United Network for Organ Sharing that actually oversees the placement of organs. So, we work through the United Network of Organ Sharing. A list comes up for each donor. We go down that list to try to find those recipients. And once we have all the recipients located, then we set basically at the surgical recovery time and go to the OR for their recovery. Now sometimes if the donor is eligible, they may also be able to donate tissues as well. And I think like Tracy said, you know, one tissue donor can enhance the lives of up to 75 people. One organ donor can save up to eight lives through organ donation.

Host: Excellent. Yeah when I saw that number, 75, I was really blown away by that. Tracy, who's eligible to donate an organ, and is anyone not a candidate?

Tracy Ide: So, there is no medical condition that absolutely rules you out for denation. What we say is go ahead and make a decision. Talk to your family about it. Then, let the medical professionals at LifeLink determine what's suitable when you pass away. People will be surprised at the things that can be used after they passed away. So, don't rule yourself out. Let the medical professional at LifeLink decide what's best when that time comes.

Host: Gotcha. Jan, back to you. How long has it been that Southeast Georgia Health System has been partnering with LifeLink and about how many people have been impacted?

Jan Jones, RN: That's a tough question. As long as I can remember, to be honest with you. LifeLink is celebrating, I believe, their 35th year this year. And I know that we have really been impacted and to have wonderful people in this community who are registered donors that have graciously and unselfishly given their donations at the end of their life. And the number of people is amazing who have been saved through this act of kindness. Tracy, would you like to talk more about the 35th year that you all are going to be celebrating.

Tracy Ide: Yeah. So, this is our 35th year being in Georgia. We have partnered with all hospitals across the state since that time, since we started working in Georgia. And I'll just echo Jan's statement of we have had numerous donations from Southeast Georgia, and it's for those people who wanted to leave a legacy of kindness someone else and give someone else a gift of life. So, we're thankful for all of those people and their families who said yes to donation.

Host: Marlene, what would you say the key is to a successful partnership here between LifeLink of Georgia and Southeast Georgia Health System?

Marlene Witter: Wow, that's such a great question. I would definitely say our relationship. The relationships that we have with the hospital and the community is really key to making a successful program.

Host: Tracy, what's it like doing such important and literally often life-saving work?

Tracy Ide: That gives me pause because it's awe-inspiring every day. I like to remind our staff all the time that everybody at LifeLink has a role in donation. From our administrative staff up through our senior leadership, everybody plays a role in saving lives. So, talking to many of my colleagues, that's what keeps us going. That's what gets us up in the morning knowing what we do today is going to impact, one, the recipient and their family, but most importantly, those donor families and being able to walk with them through really probably the worst time of their life. They've just lost a loved one, but being able to give them comfort and knowing that their loved one is going to live on in someone else and helping them see there's a little light at the end of the tunnel, that keeps me going. That is what I get up every day knowing it's another day at work, yes, but it's another day you'll save someone else. And I love that that's what we get to do at LifeLink.

Host: How about you, Jan? You have obviously spent the majority of your life devoted to this. How come?

Jan Jones, RN: I'm just very passionate about it. I do think that I've seen this and I have another connection. I have a niece who was married to a heart recipient, and he was also a very well known physician assistant here at our organization. And ironically, he worked in the field of Cardiology. And it gave him many more years to be able to serve this community with the passion he had.

And just seeing, it's bittersweet because you've got one family who's very, very excited that they're going to get the chance for their loved one to live on. And like Tracy said, then it's sad because somebody else is losing that family member. But to be able to work with both groups of people and to see the difference in both sides. And I think the donors are just so humble with what they're going through and helping them, you feel like when you go home at the end of the day that you've actually made a difference on both sides.

Host: And speaking of which, Marlene, it's important, isn't it? Crucial, really, to tell stories like the ones the three of you have told here that have personally touched you because that can be the difference in having someone decide to be a donor, right?

Marlene Witter: I agree. You know, in my role, I provide education to all the staff in the hospital and sometimes even the community. And when I tell my story or maybe tell another story of over my many years, it really gets the attention of the staff or whoever my audience is. I noticed that it really, really helps them focus on what I'm saying, because it really does make a difference in how they react. And maybe, you know, especially for the hospital staff and how engaged they are in the process by telling those stories.

Host: Jan, the health system has hosted several honor walks, so what are those?

Jan Jones, RN: We work very closely with LifeLink and actually just started this process last year, I believe, that LifeLink and the hospital offer families the ability to participate in an honor walk, which is a beautiful and touching, simple ceremony when family, friends, and the hospital employees line the hallway from the patient's room to the OR. And it's in order to give honor and respect for that person who has made the selfless decision to donate the gift of life. It's a way to show the donor's family that the world is so grateful, so very grateful for their gift. And it recognizes the heroism of that donor. It's very touching and the patient is taken to the OR with the halls being lined and people who don't even know this family that have come out and the response that we've had from different departments in this health system has just been overwhelming. And there's not a dry eye in the whole ceremony, it's that touching.

Host: Yeah, just the way you described it sounds very emotional. I would imagine the three of you and many others that do what you do have shed a lot of tears of joy over the years. Any other recognition given to the families of those donating?

Tracy Ide: So, we don't just support the family at the hospital and then say, "Thank you so much," and move on. We support the family throughout their grief journey. So, we will do that for years after their loved one passes away. So many things we do. First, after the OR is complete, we do follow up the family and let them know what was able to be recovered and that everything is complete. But then, we follow up with letters and we let them know exactly where the location and very small information. Again, the process is confidential, so we don't tell them exactly who got it. But we will say, "A 32-year-old male in Georgia received your loved one's liver and can now continue living his life doing the hobbies that he has." We send them a medallion 30 days after and some donor family lapel pins. We also do a service every year for our families and invite them to come to our office to see a tree of life that we have in our Norcross office, which is something that we every year put the names of the first names of the donors from the previous year, all the organ and tissue donors, and those who said yes to donation and something happened in the process and we're not actually the recovery thing, our donors in spirit. We have all their names on our wall, and we invite the families to come in and see their loved one's name, and then meet other families who have gone through this process. Because it's a unique experience to be a donor family, and we want to make sure they're connected with other families, and so they can walk through that journey together.

We have a Facebook group we have for our donor families, and let them connect that way, provide grief resources to them. I mean, we just stay connected with them. We make sure they know that we're here for them. Our family care coordinators, the ones that work with them in the hospital, are available to talk with them at any point in any time to help with their grief.

Host: And as we get set in a moment to wind down our conversation, ladies, Tracy, for those interested, we've covered so much ground here, but what it all comes down to is where and how do people register to become donors?

Tracy Ide: The good thing is we have several different ways one can register in the state of Georgia, and I'm excited to say out of the six counties that the health system covers, 43% of the population is already registered, which is amazing, and we're so thankful for that. For those who have not registered and they say, "This is something I want to do," first thing, talk to your family, make sure your family knows your decision, and then actually make that decision by going online to donatelifegeorgia.org. Again, that's donatelifegeorgia.org. It takes less than five minutes to sign up.

You can also do it when you get your driver's license or renew your driver's license at the Department of Driver Services, also when you're getting a hunting or fishing license through the Department of Natural Resources, or you can call LifeLink and we can provide you a paper form. So, all simple, easy ways to do it. But the most easy is going to donatelifegeorgia.org. It takes less than five minutes to do it. Make sure you tell your family as well.

Host: Sounds pretty quick and easy. And so, let's try ending where we began, Jan. We mentioned at the top April is Donate Life Month, so how is the health system celebrating the occasion?

Jan Jones, RN: Well, we have had several things that we've done for the month. The donate flag has been hung for the month of April. And this is also the flag that we hang when we're in the process of a donation occurring at our hospital. So, people who ride by our hospital and see that flag flying, they will know that somebody is in the process of giving the gift of life here in our community.

Host: Wonderful indeed. Well, folks, we trust you're now more familiar with organ donation. Ladies, really, such a treat to meet all of you. And please keep up your both life-changing and, of course, life-saving work.

Tracy Ide: Awesome. Thank you so much, Joey, for having us.

Marlene Witter: Thank you, Joey.

Jan Jones, RN: Thank you.

Host: Absolutely. And for more information, please visit donatelifegeorgia.org. Again, that's donatelifegeorgia.org. Now, if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social media. I'm Joey Wahler, and thanks again for being part of Health Matters, a Southeast Georgia Health System podcast.