Each year, thousands of people worldwide succumb to end-organ failure while awaiting life-saving transplantation procedures. The shortage of organs continues with no signs of easing in the foreseeable future. The availability of organs from living donors continues to be constrained. At the same time, the cumulative knowledge of organ preservation is advancing steadily resulting in an enhanced ability to utilize a growing number of previously unsuitable tissue and organ gifts. Our ability to procure and preserve more organs is accompanied by the increasing use of so-called “expanded criteria” donors, or those whose organs may not have been suitable without modern advances in organ preservation science. Within the overall context of organ donation from non-living donors, the importance of physiologic and end-organ optimization cannot be understated. This chapter discusses our current state of understanding of optimized organ procurement approaches derived from practical experiences and “lessons learned” at a high-performing, community-based tertiary referral hospital.
Part of the book: Organ Donation and Transplantation
Continuous advancements in the medical field and the need to promote scientific evidence has increased the concern for educators to ensure that physician trainees are provided with the appropriate tools and experiences to develop the skills necessary to enhance scientific discovery. To address this requirement, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) implemented core competencies, inclusive of scholarly activity requirements, for accreditation of Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs. These changes have challenged institutions to educate differently and incorporate scholarly activity and research into their curriculum through novel and creative approaches. One such mechanism is the development of post-doctoral research programs which utilize research fellows to provide the necessary support for research productivity across multiple specialties. In the following chapter, the authors will provide some background information on the goals and function of the ACGME, detail the development of the new research requirements, the utilization of post-doctoral research fellows to support the scholarly activity requirement laid out by the ACGME, and potential measures of performance and success.
Part of the book: Contemporary Topics in Graduate Medical Education