Jolyn Lin Yu'En, 15

School: Punggol Secondary School

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

Award: Special Mention, Senior Category, 2024

Imagine this: a world where lives will be saved, hope will be restored, and miracles will be possible. Now, what about this: why are there so many people who turn a blind eye to the power of organ donation and transplantation? There are so many people who could care less about organ donation and transplantation for the simple reason that it is too complex, but why? It is understandable why people would think that way as organ donation and transplantation are medical procedures. Thus, this belief does hold weight as interests sometimes depend on how we understand concepts, or does it? It definitely does hold weight but there is a counterargument. Now you may be asking the question “but isn’t organ donation and transplantation an actually tedious process and a tough medical procedure?”, and yes it is, but the notion that people are disinterested in organ donation and transplantation as they are too complex does not make sense as there are definitely other reasons why people could be disinterested.

The first reason why this belief is false is that there is not much information that is readily accessible to people who live out their lives without thoughts of organ donation or transplantation. After all, there is not a lot of media depicting the procedures and benefits of these practices. Even with a lot of media coverage, it would be very over-simplified so that a wider audience would be able to understand the complexities of organ donation and transplantation and therefore will not depict the actual circumstances of organ donation. Even though this statement seems like it would help more people to search up on organ donation and transplantation, it being paired with the lack of information necessary for people to understand more, leads to people not searching for further information. Even worse, these people end up believing that since organ donation and transplantation is so easy, as depicted on advertisements or over-simplified media, other people will be willing to donate instead. This is most likely why there is little to no media on organ donation and transplantation as negated by my reasons stated above. Even in the case that information is very plentiful, the terminology and language used in these studies would be hard for the everyday person to understand, with all of the medical terms and detailed explanations of procedures. Simplifying these terms might lead to the symmetric problems as the simplified media problem or changing information drastically. Not only this but pairing this with a small amount of media coverage just leads to no one wanting to read this unless they are a medical student, a student who needs to write a report, someone who is currently having or knows someone with organ problems, or someone who is extremely interested for personal reasons. Even in the case that both media and information are very accessible, this would lead to either over-simplification or over-complication, which would lead to information getting lost in the simplification process or few people caring anyway as they have their own life respectively. Therefore, the reason why people are uninterested in organ donation and transplantation is because there is a lack of media and accessible information for an easier understanding of these medical procedures. Insofar as there is a lack of information and media coverage, the masses will not generally care about the topic of organ donation and transplantation. Not only that, but people are also less likely to search up on these topics when there is no media coverage as well. The combination of limited exposure and inaccessible information is distinct from a lack of understanding of complex medical procedures.

Secondly, people are less likely to care about organ donation and transplantation until it affects them directly. If we think about it carefully, no one would actually care to research organ donation and transplantation until it directly affects our daily life. For example, if we needed an organ transplant or someone close to us is experiencing organ failure, chances are that people would care a bit more about this topic. Now, this may sound like I am making people out to be unempathetic and narcissistic monsters, but what I have said has a sliver of truth. The disinterest here comes from the fact that there is no real reason for people to be motivated to understand more unless we are impacted by organ failure or the need for a transplant directly by someone close to us or ourselves. Even though people do have the tendency to be empathetic, we cannot change how our human mind is wired to focus on ourselves. Our minds are constantly focused on ourselves, with the majority of our thoughts revolving around our own lives and choices. The autonomy we have as people to be able to research, learn and study on organ donation and transplantation is overshadowed by our own narcissism, for lack of a better word. The general understanding of organ donation is that we give away our organs for a better cause. However, people are less likely to do this unless someone close to them is in need of an organ as our human instinct does not like giving things away or having things taken away from us. The reason people will not research in this case is not due to complexity but due to our psychology and the fact that organ donation or transplantation is a procedure that not a lot of people need to worry or care about in their lives until old age or until they personally or someone close to them are affected. We only care when emotions are involved as we people are emotional, and that makes us human. Being human thus stops us from caring all too much as we remain generally unaffected and unfazed by the processes of organ donation.

Though this is not to say that people are ignorant on purpose despite understanding the procedures, there are definitely people who actually do not understand the many procedures needed to go through for organ donation and transplantation. Thus, they do not spend much time poring over organ donation and transplantation research in an attempt to understand as people are definitely too busy in their lives to care for things they do not need or do not understand. If something is intricate, people would want to throw in the towel and call it a day as they would rather relax and unwind rather than spend hours upon hours trying to understand the complex medical procedures that need to happen when undergoing the process of organ donation and transplantation. We all have our own interests, and for many people, medical research may not be one of them, making it more challenging to comprehend these topics. There is definitely truth in the statement that organ donation and transplantation is of little interest to people as it is convoluted as we would rather work on our interests or lives rather than the common good in organ donation and transplantation.

Overall, the notion that organ donation and transplantation is of little interest to people as it is too complex holds truth as well as some parts that can be criticised. The main part of this statement I am criticising is not the part that people do not care due to complexity, but the fact that there are a multitude of other possible reasons why people are unlikely to care. Even in the case of other more well-known humanitarian crises such as climate change, loss of wildlife and world hunger, people mostly do not care even though these topics have heaps of research and have easier terminology that does not require years of knowledge, which supports my first point. We only care about climate change and global warming now as it affects us, which ties into my second point that people do not care about large problems until they affect us.

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