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Perspectives and attitudes towards organ donation

Guest Editors:
Elena Cavazzoni: University of Sydney, Australia
Sonny Dhanani: University of Ottawa, Canada
Greg Moorlock: University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Matthew Weiss: Centre Mère-Enfant Soleil du CHU de Québec, Canada



BMC Medical Ethics called for submissions to our Collection on perspectives and attitudes towards organ donation. Organ donation - the process of donating healthy organs from a living or deceased person to someone in need of a transplant - is a crucial aspect of medicine. However, in spite of the benefits it brings to patients and grieving families, the process of organ donation is surrounded by significant ethical concerns about consent and coercion, religious, and cultural issues. BMC Medical Ethics launched this collection to promote a better understanding of the factors that contribute to individuals’ decisions, perspectives and attitudes towards organ donation, among diverse populations.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Elena Cavazzoni: University of Sydney, Australia

Elena Cavazzoni  is a senior staff specialist in paediatric intensive care at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and has been the co-State Medical Director for the New South Wales Organ and Tissue Donation Service since 2014.  She has significant interest in palliative care, organ donation, complex communication and medical education. Her research interests are in organ and tissue donation, transfusion medicine and neurocritical care. She is a senior clinical lecturer for the University of Sydney and has been involved in the development of several postgraduate education courses targeted to junior medical offers.

Sonny Dhanani: University of Ottawa, Canada

Sonny Dhanani is the chief of the pediatric intensive care unit at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa and Professor (Pediatrics) at the University of Ottawa. Dr Dhanani is also Associate Director for donation research for the Canadian Donation and Transplant Research Program. His own area of focus is leading international research pertaining to practices and standards for determining death after cardiac arrest for the purposes of donation. Dr Dhanani is the Chair of the Canadian Donation Physician Network, Chair of Canadian Blood Services’ national Deceased Donation Advisory Committee, and steering committee member of Health Canada’s Organ Donation and Transplantation Collaborative.

Greg Moorlock: University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Greg Moorlock is a bioethicist specialising in ethical issues related to organ donation and transplantation. He is Chair of the European Society of Transplantation’s ELPAT Living Donation working group, a member of clinical and research ethics committees, and has published widely on transplant ethics. Greg is also heavily involved in medical education and is Academic Lead for Values, Law and Ethics at Warwick Medical School, where he teaches ethics to medical students and healthcare professionals. 

Matthew Weiss: Centre Mère-Enfant Soleil du CHU de Québec; Université Laval, Canada

Matthew Weiss is a pediatric intensivist working in Quebec City at the CHU de Québec, an assistant professor at the Université Laval, and medical director for organ donation at Transplant Québec. His research interests focus on the implementation of legislative and policy reform in organ donation. His multiple peer reviewed publications touch on diverse aspects of adult and pediatric donation. Dr Weiss has presented on these topics in local, national, and international scientific conferences and is a frequent communicator of donation policies and practices in media outlets. 


About the collection

BMC Medical Ethics is calling for submissions to our Collection on perspectives and attitudes towards organ donation. 

Organ donation - the process of donating healthy organs from a living or deceased person to someone in need of a transplant - is a crucial aspect of medicine. However, in spite of the benefits it brings to patients and grieving families, the process of organ donation is surrounded by significant ethical concerns about consent and coercion, religious, and cultural issues. Definitions and diagnosis of death and acceptable timings of extracting organs for transplantation are also a common subject of considerations. With the increased need for organ donation worldwide, studies surrounding the topic are vital to improve rates and reduce barriers to donation. 

BMC Medical Ethics is launching this collection to promote a better understanding of the factors that contribute to individuals’ decisions, perspectives and attitudes towards organ donation, among diverse populations. We welcome studies on, but not limited to, attitudes and perspectives of health practitioners on the practice of organ donations, issues around consent associated with organ donation, public attitudes on organ donation and the influence of public education campaigns on organ donation rates.


Image credit: SvetaZi / Getty Images / iStock

  1. In May 2020, England moved to an opt-out organ donation system, meaning adults are presumed to be an organ donor unless within an excluded group or have opted-out. This change aims to improve organ donation ra...

    Authors: Natalie L. Clark, Dorothy Coe, Natasha Newell, Mark N. A. Jones, Matthew Robb, David Reaich and Caroline Wroe
    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2024 25:47
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. The organ donation and transplantation (ODT) system heavily relies on the willingness of individuals to donate their organs. While it is widely believed that public trust plays a crucial role in shaping donati...

    Authors: María Victoria Martínez-López, Leah McLaughlin, Alberto Molina-Pérez, Krzysztof Pabisiak, Nadia Primc, Gurch Randhawa, David Rodríguez-Arias, Jorge Suárez, Sabine Wöhlke and Janet Delgado
    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2023 24:93
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Medical Ethics 2024 25:26

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Perspectives and attitudes towards organ donation" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.