Great news in the California transplant world: California is piloting a donor registry -- at last!

Those of you in other states may already have a donor registry set up (34 states have registries already). This means that when you went to the DMV and signed up to be an organ donor, your intentions were saved in a database and should you ever become brain dead and not have your license on you, the database can be accessed to verify your wishes. Furthermore, if you do have your license on you, the database can be accessed to see if you had any restrictions or specific stipulations.

In California, we filled out wallet-sized cards about our donation intentions and put a pink dot sticker on our licenses, but we had no donor registry. This meant that unless we had that card and/or our license with the pink dot on it at the time of brain death, there was no record of our wishes. That is why it was so important for our family members and friends to know our wishes, because consent would then become the decision of the kin.

Potential donors in California had their card or license on them at the time of brain death less than 10% of the time. Oftentimes people assumed that putting the dot on their license made their wishes clear and thus didn't bother to tell their kin -- and without the license, who knows if their wishes were then carried out.

The Donor Registry resolves many of those issues. Right now it's a website indpendent of the DMV, but we're hoping we can tie it in with them so that people can register to donate when they get their license and/or go to renew it, etc. The California Donor Registry website launches Monday, April 4, 2005 @ 10:00AM with statewide events involving state and local government officials, media, hospitals, volunteer health organizations, churches, and community groups. What's more, CA residents can pre-register as of March 1. If you are one of my friends or family in California and you're reading this, I urge you to join me and all my coworkers and their CA friends and family in pre-registering. I'll be sending out a mass email with the website on it closer to the actual pre-registration date...

...my last message to you on this topic is NOT to assume your state has a registry...make your wishes known to your loved ones regardless of what your state does. It will ensure that you get to give the gift of life no matter what.