Examples of Organ Donation Awareness Projects

2010 & 2011 Activity

Bob Dupuis – University of North Carolina Hospitals
E-mail: [email protected]

We held some donor registration events and a donor registration concert on UNC campus April 12th-16th.

This is what we did:

Students from Rho Chi, along with some other RX organizations, and Donate Life/ Carolina Donor Services set up registration table at a different location (School of pharmacy, School of public health, School of nursing and UNC hospitals) each day of the week (Monday thru Thursday) for a few hours each day. Then on Friday evening, we had a concert on one of the quads (surrounded by dorms) on UNC main campus from 6-9PM.We had live bands, free pizza (Dominos), free subs (Jersey Mikes), free T shirts (local T shirt maker), free water (Costco), the UNC mascot and had registration tables for Organ and tissue, as well as bone marrow. Other supporters included several UNC student organizations (pharmacy & non -pharmacy, such as dormitory associations & others), Astellas, Novartis, Walgreens, Pharmacy Alumni Association, UNC Hospitals, CDS, Bone marrow registry. It looked like we registered about a total somewhere between 200-300 people (eye, organ, tissue and bone marrow). For the first time, especially at the concert, we thought it went really well given that it was only a 3 hour time period.

2011 Activities

Project 1: Jillian Descourouez – University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics
E-mail: [email protected]

Description written by Andre Reher, UW-Madison School of Pharmacy student:

Dr. Porter of UW-Madison's School of Pharmacy recruited eight students to work on an organ donation awareness project, guided by pharmacists Jillian Descourouez and Bill Simmons. The students began a series of brainstorming meetings ultimately resulting in the idea of having a colloquium informing everyone of YesIWillWisconsin.com.

Among the eight students who agreed to the program, none had ever heard of the site. This was surprising to us, as all of the students we were well-educated and trained in the healthcare field. Wisconsin is unique in that they recently started an initiative called Yes I Will Wisconsin. At the center of this initiative is a website which allows for people to sign up as a registered donor. This supersedes the typical dot on the driver's license, as registration on this website acts as signing a contracting stating that one wishes to have his or her organs donated after death. After brainstorming, we developed the first part of our project: a survey which would serve to gather information for the organ procurement organization and begin to raise awareness of the website as well as for our eventual colloquium. We created an electronic survey, as well as a paper survey, which were distributed to pharmacy students and staff. The surveys were delivered electronically via email, and the paper copies were distributed between classes. We had a great response rate with around 250 students and faculty participating. The survey was also successful as many students said that it was sparked their interest in the topic, resulting in their attendance at the colloquium presentation.

After completing the survey, we considered other incentives to have students come to our colloquium, such as the possibility of a free lunch. However, as we were not an official project yet, we had not funding to pay for lunch. We were able to pair up with another organization in order to get funding to provide lunch to colloquium attendees. The Wisconsin Student Pharmacy Society agreed to work with us, as they agreed that this was a great topic and one which aligned with their organizations goals and objectives. As part of their agreement to provide funding, we agreed to have a transplant pharmacist present on the role of the pharmacist in the care of transplant patients at one of their meetings. Our transplant resident pharmacist, Dr. Descourouez presented to the students her specialty, and we had another opportunity to advertise for YesIWillWisconsin.com as well as for our upcoming colloquium. For this effort, we managed to procure the needed funds for the lunch as well as form a great partnership with our school's larger organization, WSPS.

Meanwhile, we began to branch outside of the school and worked with Bill Simmons to have a Yes I will, Wisconsin booth at the Wisconsin Society of Pharmacy Students (WSPS) fair. We were given promotional materials by the University of Wisconsin Organ Procurement Organization (UW OPO) and had a computer on site allowing people to sign up for the registry right there if they chose to. In this method, we believe we had around twenty people sign-up for the registry.

Finally, in the last week of classes, we had our colloquium. For guest speakers, we had Dr. D'Alessandro, transplant specialty surgeon and the medical director of the UW OPO, Dr. Descourouez, our previous transplant pharmacist, and Kara Thomas, a fellow pharmacy student who is the mother of two daughters who had organ transplants. The colloquium was a huge success with around 100 people in attendance (according to the student administration office, this was over twice the amount of students showing up for typical school-wide colloquiums). We believe in this method, we have had around fifty more students sign up for the registry.

One of the most dramatic impacts for the registry that we believe our project has done is something that has not yet finished. In our partnership with WSPS, we have managed to become a sustainable entity, or operation, for our school. Our project will become an outlet for the volunteer hours students must achieve, and in this method, continue to add many more people to the registry in each successive year. Already we have an extensive list of projects we hope to accomplish in the upcoming academic year, including, but not limited to:

• Colloquiums in the other health professional schools, (medical, nursing, physician assistant, etc.)
• Displays for OPO our school's Atrium for April (Donate Life-Month) where we can further explain YesIwillWisconsin.com as well as have computers where students would be able to sign up if they choose to.
• The education of high school and middle school on donor awareness in their DMV classes
• Donor Dot Ice Cream: we're in the process of creating a specialized ice cream through UW's Babcock's dairy store raising further awareness
• Continuing the surveys: We hope to make this an annual thing in which we can use to compare the success of our efforts in raising awareness, raise further awareness, as well as to provide data to the OPO. As time progresses, and we have significant retrospective results, we plan on attempting to go through the IRB process, that we might eventually be able to publish our results in PSWJ, raising even more awareness

Because of our late discovery, we had only two months to accomplish everything that we did this past academic year. I have little doubt that we can easily accomplish everything else that we aspire to in the upcoming school year.

Project 2: Barrett Crowther – CHRISTUS Transplant Institute
E-mail: [email protected]

Description provided by Todd Siluk, University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy student

The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy (COP) has taken steps to address the public health concern regarding organ donation by incorporating organ donation awareness activities into community health screenings sponsored by various organizations within the COP. In addition to routine screening tools such as blood glucose and cholesterol checks, students provide educational resources to patients at these health fairs. In collaboration with Texas Organ Sharing Alliance (TOSA) and Donate Life Texas, several educational pamphlets and handouts have been passed out at these health fairs, along with information regarding the benefits and facts regarding organ donation. With these materials, the UT College of Pharmacy Student Society of Health-System Pharmacists (SSHP) have created a poster that is displayed at the health fairs for patients to look at while discussing organ donation with the pharmacy students. In addition to providing education and information about organ donation, patients at the health fairs are given the opportunity to sign up to become a registered organ donor.

From the positive response to organ donation awareness efforts made at these health screenings, UT students created a committee within the SSHP organization called the Transplant Committee. This committee will be chaired by a representative at the main Austin campus, as well as a representative at the San Antonio affiliate campus. The purpose of this committee within SSHP will be to promote the continued awareness of organ donation throughout the community by participating in health screenings and working in alliance with TOSA at sponsored community events, as well as to provide education to SSHP members regarding transplant pharmacy as a career. Due to the limited resources dedicated to transplant pharmacy within our curriculum, the Transplant Committee will be able to provide students with firsthand knowledge about this field through education and transplant pharmacist speakers at meetings. It is the goal of this committee to continue to educate students and community members about the benefits of organ donation and transplant efforts for positive advancement of public health.

Upcoming 2012 Activities

Bob Dupuis – University of North Carolina Hospitals
E-mail: [email protected]

We’ll have at least 2 different events.

One activity will occur on April 12th which will be at UNC Hospitals and will involve Carolina Donor Services, organ transplant services, pharmacy services, bone marrow services and a few other entities. Each will have a table in hospital lobby and will give out info and register donors.
The other event is on April 15th. It will take place outdoors on UNC’s main campus, near downtown Chapel Hill. We will have Carolina Donor Services and Bone Marrow to give out info and register students and others as organ donors. We will have music (bands), speakers, food, and T shirts. We may also have some art exhibits/ activities as well. The theme of this event is “Recycle Yourself”

This will be our third year doing this and we’re hoping this one will be bigger and better.

Drew Silverman – Tampa General Hospital
E-mail: [email protected]

• Meeting with the U of Florida in beginning of January to talk about organ donation project.
• Working with Tampa General Hospital to promote organ donation.
• Trying to get a USF vs. UF donation campaign contest complete with a trophy and prize. We will also try to bring in U of Tampa and possibly another Tampa college.
• Trying to touch base with Tony Dungy, and some other local celebrities.