The type of organ donation that most people are familiar with is donation after brain death, which is the type of donation that the organ donation designation on a driver’s license or donor registry covers.
A patient becomes eligible for this type of donation when they are declared brain dead, a medical condition that means that the brain is no longer receiving blood flow and has been irreversibly damaged. At the time the doctor determines that brain death has occurred, the patient becomes legally dead. In fact, the death certificate will be issued with the time of the brain death pronouncement as the time of death, rather than when the heart stops beating later during surgery.
When the donor is taken to the operating room, her heart is still beating and her breathing is being provided by a ventilator. While the body is kept functioning with the help of machines and medications, their brain no longer functions in a meaningful way, and the surgery to recover the organs takes place. The supportive devices will be removed midway through recovery surgery, at which point breathing and cardiac activity cease.
