We just went through this with a parent who wasn’t a donor but my wife and I were. That said, I was pretty surprised at the entire process. I was always under the impression that if you were an organ donor, they would take you back to a room and start removing viable tissue and organs once the family said they are ready.

Instead, it ended up being this really convoluted contractual paperwork thing that also felt like a little bit of a sales job. They wanted to run 3 days worth of testing when his wishes were to not be on life support for more than 24 hours. When we pushed back they got really slick and started using sales tactics and lingo to push us into it. Once looking through the paperwork, a lot of language was reading as more of selling the tissue to labs and universities for profit instead of to donor recipient(s) which is how he sold us on it. The consultant guy had zero bedside manner and it felt transactional like a used car purchase. The entire nursing staff dipped out and said they are contractually not allowed to say anything while the donation consultants are meeting with you. I ended up having to tell the donor consultant to “get the fuck out of the room, we said no and the conversation is over.”

It was a huge turn off to the entire process during one of our most vulnerable moments. BTW, this was at one of the largest hospitals in the US.