open access

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/52326

Rebirthable Life ： Narratives of Japanese organ transplantation by concerned parties

英語

parties

2013-03

Graduate School of Lettters, Hokkaido University

Journal of the Graduate school of Letters

8

73-81

Japan’s first organ transplantation law was established in 1997 and revised in 2010,but only 191 organ transplant operations from brain-dead donors have yet been performed(data to 23 September 2012). Most recipients depend on living donors within their family unit or overseas transplants from foreign donors;as a result,organ transplantation issues are not exclusively medical problems. The objective of this study was to analyze the concepts of life held by people involved in organ transplantation in Japan. Methodologies included interview research and participant observation with concerned parties,who were mostly introduced through the Japan Transplant Recipients Organization. Ten transplant medical workers(seven transplant surgeons,two recipient coordinators and one donor coordinator),seven organ recipients and six donor families were interviewed,and participant observations were performed at related events. The data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using qualitative research methods and coding methods from the grounded theory approach,paying particular attention to objectivity,reliability and validity. The results reveal that the existence of donors is the most important issue for concerned parties,and that donors’lives can be“reborn”in both recipients’bodies and donor families’minds. Surgeons admire organ transplantation as a new medical treatment but they cannot help feeling guilty about harvesting organs,especially undertaking such procedures as removing a still-beating heart from a donor’s chest. Recipients are grateful to donors but have complex feelings about their donors’deaths and the donor families’sadness at losing family members. Donor families may have negative feelings toward recipients but find interpretations that allow them to imagine the rebirth of their family members via their living organs. Further research should inquire into the relationship between emerging medical technology and human responses in the twenty-first century.

紀要論文

Version of Record

1880-8832

AA12118273