The national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN)
Special Activity of Leonard Bucklin

United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

Bucklin is specially proud of his work on the Ethics Committee for UNOS (and past work as a member of the Board of Directors and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors).

Ethics, law, and medicine are all involved in this corporation's setting of national priorities, hospital and medical regulations and policies. UNOS is the federal contractor running the Congressional mandated national Organ Procurement Transplant Network, (OPTN). UNOS and the OPTN must balance a multitude of factors and competing interests of the average 85,000 persons awaiting life-saving organs every day (when only about 25,000 organs are available during a year).  The corporate headquarters each day makes allocations and arrangements for securing organs, transporting them, and providing to which transplant center and patient to whom they are allocated. The OPTN mandates standards for organ transplantation professionals and hospitals and audits for the Government the performance of the over 400 organizations across the country involved in transplantation.

Read summary of the article on medical ethics, mentioned by Life Source in its above letter. Bucklin's article impacted organ transplantation practices which have now changed as he advocated.

Or you can download the entire article, which was solicited by the Social Sciences Research Network, for republication there, in PDF format, at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=362920

UNOS  runs the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN).  The OPTN  coordinates over 400 medical entities to provide the equitable allocation of organs for life-saving transplants throughout the United States.  The ethics issues involved in making this daily equitable allocation are sensitive and newsworthy.

• Through a national Organ Center, UNOS matches donors to recipients 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 

• UNOS develops the national regulations and  policies that maximize the limited supply of organs and give all patients a fair chance at receiving the organ they need -- regardless of age, sex, race, lifestyle, financial or social status.

• UNOS sets professional standards for ethical, efficient and quality patient care in transplant hospitals. 

• Through the Organ Center, UNOS manages the national transplant waiting list.

• UNOS maintains the database that contains all clinical transplant data. These data are used to improve the medicine and science of transplantation, develop organ allocation policy, aid scientific research and support transplant professionals in caring for patients.

• UNOS monitors every organ match to ensure adherence to UNOS policy. 

• Through nationwide publicity campaigns, UNOS raises public awareness about the importance of organ donation.

Bucklin served on the Ethics Committee of UNOS for about a dozen years, the latest being an appointment for three years ending in 2007.