Organ donation - a reflection

We get lots of information and guidance on the science and practicalities of what we are supposed to do as anaesthetists.

However we get very little information or guidance on how to deal with the emotions that ensue from a highly challenging, stressful and pyschologically traumatising profession, in which we see and do things to strangers that most people would rather not think about.

I recently undertook the unsettling task of accompanying a patient to theatre for organ donation after cardiac death, and it made me feel a whole lot of things that I wasn't expecting and certainly hadn't been warned about.

This is a reflection on the process of organ donation after circulatory death, presented as a letter to my former self.