Goh Jing Jing, 15

School: Anglican High School

Topic: Little interest in organ donation is due to its complexity

Award: Distinction, Senior Category, 2024

Last December, I had to write a position paper for a Model United Nations (MUN) event about organ donation, transplantation, and trafficking. I was assigned as the delegate of Côte d’Ivoire, in the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM) to discuss the topic of organ trafficking. Curious, I casually asked my parents about organ donation, transplantation, and trafficking. That was when I first discovered Singapore’s Human Organ Transplant Act, better known as HOTA. My father had told me that in Singapore, everyone was automatically included in HOTA at a certain age; where we automatically consent to four different organs being removed for transplantation after death.

This piqued my interest. I began my research.

If it were not for the MUN event, I would not have taken the initiative to educate myself about such a topic.

To be clear, I completely agree that the concept of organ donation and transplantation is complicated. I also admit there is a lack of interest within the public regarding this topic. Yet, I would like to contest that these two ideas are not as interrelated as one may think. Thus, I acknowledge that the complex nature of the topic could lead to a lack of interest in certain situations. However, I will be discussing some other possible factors that are much more likely to contribute to this overarching issue of a lack of interest in this topic.

To begin, let us discuss the claim that the concept itself is complex.

Organ donation and transplantation, though gaining traction in this modern time, is still definitely not your topic for dinner table chitchat. If you were to ask anyone what they knew about organ donation and transplantation, I am certain that they would pause, take a moment to digest the question, and then give an answer that likely be either “good deed” or “saving lives”. And I say this with confidence, because I conducted a small-scale survey asking such questions, and the majority of respondents answered with largely similar answers.^[1]

In general, we can agree that the topic itself is not straightforward. Organ donation and transplantation are very elaborate processes that build off each other. Many medical procedures are needed to execute this. Numerous policies have been passed to let this happen in Singapore. Much research is needed about human organs, the lifespan of organs, the match rate of organs, et cetera. Understanding how organ donation works is also something that comes with time and in-depth research - understanding why it is key to ensure that donors and recipients are anonymous to each other, why it is detrimental to place an incentive for organ donation, and why altruism may not be effective in certain situations. These are all branches of organ donation and transplantation, and questions come along swiftly with the discovery of organ donation and transplantation.

Next, let us review the claim that there is a lack of interest in this topic.

The majority of 34,610 respondents from a study concluded there is a prominent lack of knowledge regarding the issue.^[2] This goes to show that not many people have such awareness and knowledge about the topic at hand. It is widely accepted that organ donation and transplantation is not something that the average person would spend hours watching YouTube videos on or reading about. One study was done with medical students and, shockingly, 43.3% of 216 of these medical students expressed their dissatisfaction and unhappiness with their current insufficient knowledge about organ donation.^[3] If this many medical students showed a lack of knowledge in the issue, we could just imagine the study that showed the lack of knowledge of the public.

Hence, I argue that the idea of organ donation and transplantation is a concept that the vast majority of people only know very little about. The intricate details and processes of this procedure is definitely not something that they would have at their fingertips. The concept and understanding of organ donation and transplantation is blurry to most people. They are well aware of the existence of the process, yet unclear about the specifics.

86.4% of my survey respondents responded to the question “How often do you actively click on/read up on organ donation/transplantation?” with “Never”, “Rarely” or “Sometimes”. The remaining pool of respondents had responded with “Often”. This goes to show that the majority of people, at least within my circle, have a lack of interest in organ donation and transplantation.

Now, I would like to debunk the relationship between the complexity of the topic and the lack of interest.

We have concluded that: Yes, organ donation and transplantation is an incredibly elaborate, complicated and intricate process, and yes, there is a lack of interest from the public regarding organ donation and transplantation. However, I contest the idea that there is a direct correlation between these two facts.

I argue that the complexity and lack of clarity regarding the topic would, ironically, incentivise people to learn more about it. After realising that they have only known about the tip of the iceberg, it is common for people to want to uncover even more of the iceberg. A study^[4] centred around curiosity proves that curiosity is highest for moderately difficult tasks. “Similar to the effect of uncertainty, these studies demonstrate that in the absence of any external rewards, people prefer to spend most time exploring moderately difficult tasks.” Furthermore, the study also states that curiosity can be described as “a driving force that motivates an organism to seek out novel stimuli which diminishes with an increase in exposure.”

These extracts show that it is human nature to tend to want to find out more about something when they have already dipped their toes into it, and are aware that it is somewhat complicated and difficult. Thus, it is safe to assume that people are actually more inclined to desire more knowledge about organ donation, mainly because it is heavily perceived as complex.

Finally, here are some alternatives that are reasonable factors as to why people may have this lack of interest in organ donation.

Some people simply lack exposure to the issue, thus they obviously would be less willing to find out more about it. This can be proven by a study by the National Library of Medicine^[5] that there are people who have no sources of information regarding organ donation. When there is a lack of sources, it can be extremely difficult to trust, or even be invested in a topic, due to the sole reason that one has no idea whether or not the information presented is even reliable, real or accurate. The lack of exposure to the topic is a likely factor why there may be a lack of interest in the first place. Just like a four-year-old with no interest in basketball, simply because he has never touched a basketball or watched a basketball match before. Similarly, if one has never been exposed to the idea of cutting up someone’s body to take out a part, and to transfer that extracted body part into someone else’s body, he or she would likely not have any concern in the topic.

Additionally, the lack of exposure could be the result of social media. Social media is a large platform, sometimes important topics and pressing issues are very easily overridden by sillier media, like dancing videos or trending memes, due to the uncontroversial nature of such media. This often results in important messages facing difficulty in sliding into the push algorithms, and thus making topics like organ donation appear less frequently on users’ recommendations.

Lastly, it is extremely reasonable to assume that certain demographics of people are less interested in organ donation and transplantation not because the topic is complex, but simply because they deem it as irrelevant to them, at that point in their life. A primary school student could very possibly have a lack of curiosity in organ donation and transplantation, not because he is unable to grasp the concept of organ transplantation to save a life, but because he subconsciously categorises the whole topic as irrelevant - as something he does not need to be educated about, yet. From a different perspective, those from disenfranchised backgrounds could definitely deem this knowledge unnecessary. Perhaps they feel that even in the event they require an organ for survival, they may not have the monetary means to get the procedure done. So why bother?

If it were not for the MUN task, I would have never learnt about organ donation and transplantation - this shows how this crucial, life-saving matter is commonly overlooked, whether or not the complexity is to blame. The websites I researched that I used as references here were difficult to understand. It was not easy to look for articles that I, as a non-professional, would be able to understand easily. This goes to show that this issue is not as well covered as one may think, calling for a need to raise awareness and education regarding organ donation. So long as we build up a society where everyone has their fair share of knowledge on the topic, we can definitely save more lives.

References

^[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XpANLOPPODx4hk_Pbu1iy12vkfq_tGiJXEHb38Be5Xg/edit?usp=sharing

^[2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Transplantation&title=Public+awareness+and+attitudes+to+living+organ+donation:+Systematic+review+and+integrative+synthesis&volume=96&issue=5&publication_year=2013&pages=429-437&pmid=23677051&doi=10.1097/TP.0b013e31829282ac&#d=gs_qabs&t=1714916410567&u=%23p%3DdGAk8f5kckQJ

^[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0041134515000196

^[4] https://cocosci.princeton.edu/papers/curiosity.pdf

^[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7808348/

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2024 are those of the participants and are not endorsed by the National Organ Transplant Unit (Ministry of Health).

To learn more about organ donation and organ transplantation in Singapore, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg