Cultural Sensitivity in the Donation Discussion

Abstract

Procurement professionals disagree on the necessity for matching donation requestors with donor families by race or ethnicity in order to increase donation rates. However, reports from minority requestors indicate that displays of cultural sensitivity during donation discussions may affect both the discussions and family decisions. In donation discussions with African Americans, Asians, American Indians, and Hispanic people from traditional cultures, requestors should consider factors such as which family representatives to include, cultural familiarity with specific diseases necessitating transplants, forms of address, concepts of time, methods of decision making and communicating refusal, and families' previous experience with the hospital and the American society as a whole.