Organ Donation: The Essentials for Healthcare Professionals (FutureLearn)

Organ Donation: The Essentials for Healthcare Professionals (FutureLearn)

Understand the key processes regarding organ donation with this course for healthcare professionals, anywhere in the world. Learn about different aspects of organ donation. Despite organ donation being hugely important there is currently limited training for healthcare workforce regarding the complex issues around organ and tissue donation. This course aims to change that.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see FutureLearn's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

On the course, created in collaboration with the NHS Blood and Transplant service, you will learn about the basic principles and processes involved in organ donation from the legal aspects, to types of donation, to the importance of communication with families.

What topics will you cover?

  • Fundamentals of organ donation
  • Criteria for donation
  • Legal and ethical issues around organ donation
  • The role of the Specialist Nurse in Organ Donation
  • Donations after Death by Neurological Criteria (Brainstem Death) or Circulatory Death
  • Checking donor suitability
  • The organ retrieval process
  • Family care and follow up

Learning on this course
You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

  • Explain the importance and basic principles of organ donation.
  • Summarise the types of donation, organs which can be donated and the absolute contraindications for donation.
  • Identify the key processes associated with organ donation such as referral, family consent, patient assessment, management of potential donors and organ allocation.
  • Describe assessing and diagnosing death by neurological criteria and management of a brainstem dead patient.
  • Evaluate the importance of laws and guidance that governs the process of organ donation and transplantation.
  • Describe tissue donation and how this is facilitated in UK.
  • Reflect upon the importance of family communication in the organ donation process.

Who is the course for?
This course is for Specialist Nurses in Organ Donation (SNODs), and healthcare professionals such as nurses and doctors of all levels of experience who wish to either update their knowledge or improve their awareness of the subject, for personal or CPD reasons. It will also be useful for students training to become healthcare professionals.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Why Do We Age? The Molecular Mechanisms of Ageing (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Groningen,University Medical Center Groningen - UMCG

Why Do We Age? The Molecular Mechanisms of Ageing (FutureLearn)

Why do we age? Is there a limit to human lifespan? Can we prolong our lives? Find out with this free online course. Discover the science behind the ageing process. The “why” and “how” of ageing has puzzled mankind ever since it questioned its place in the universe.

Self Paced
5-12 Weeks
Challenges in Antibiotic Resistance: Gram Negative Bacteria (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy - BSAC

Challenges in Antibiotic Resistance: Gram Negative Bacteria (FutureLearn)

This course by BSAC is for healthcare professionals managing infections. You will learn about Gram Negative Bacteria. Identify, diagnose and treat gram negative bacterial infections. Gram negative bacteria (GNB) are a group of bacteria that can cause infection and toxic reaction in patients, yet are difficult to differentiate and treat with antibiotics due to their structure.

Self Paced
3 Weeks
Human Factors in a Healthcare Environment (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of East Anglia

Human Factors in a Healthcare Environment (FutureLearn)

Learn how the study of human factors can reduce error in healthcare with this course for healthcare professionals. Discover how understanding human factors can improve patient safety. Human factors is the study of how humans behave and interact with each other and their surroundings. It considers how humans interact in the workplace and how, due to the inevitability of human error, mistakes are likely to occur.

Self Paced
3 Weeks
Clinical Supervision with Confidence (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of East Anglia

Clinical Supervision with Confidence (FutureLearn)

Supervise undergraduate and postgraduate learners effectively with this online course for clinical and educational supervisors. This online course will help you become a more effective clinical supervisor or educator. It is mapped to competences within the Academy of Medical Educators’ framework for professional development, as used by the General Medical Council and Health Education England.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Improving Healthcare Through Clinical Research (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Improving Healthcare Through Clinical Research (FutureLearn)

On this free online course, find out how medical treatments are discovered, tested and evaluated to improve healthcare for all. Everything we do in healthcare has to be discovered and thoroughly tested before it can be put into practice. In this course you will explore clinical research – its challenges and its huge benefits to modern healthcare.

Self Paced
4 Weeks
Heart Health: A Beginner's Guide to Cardiovascular Disease (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Reading

Heart Health: A Beginner's Guide to Cardiovascular Disease (FutureLearn)

Learn more about how your heart works, the causes of heart disease and how to keep your heart healthy with this free online course. Learn how to keep your heart healthy. Your heart beats around 100,000 times a day, pumping blood around your body to deliver oxygen and nutrients, while taking away waste products. When your heart is unhealthy, it can’t perform this vital task so effectively.

Self Paced
4 Weeks
Quality Improvement in Healthcare: the Case for Change (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Bath

Quality Improvement in Healthcare: the Case for Change (FutureLearn)

Explore new and better ways of organising health and social care services, to improve quality, with this free online course. Why is quality improvement in health and social care systems so difficult? Why is it so challenging to bring in new and better ways of organising health and social care services? Many reasons have been put forward: lack of money; lack of knowledge about either the actual quality of care delivered, or resistance to making changes to long-established ways of working; excessive and sometimes misunderstood regulations; and professional opinions and interests that are hard to influence when systems are working at or beyond capacity.

Self Paced
5-12 Weeks
Become a Pharmacy Preceptor (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Taipei Medical University

Become a Pharmacy Preceptor (FutureLearn)

Learn how to become an effective pharmacy preceptor, exploring the qualities a great preceptor needs. Good internship programs are vital for training healthcare providers well - that’s why effective pharmacy preceptors, the teachers who guide students through their pharmacy training, are so important. This course will provide those looking to to be internship preceptors, in the context of pharmacy education, with basic knowledge about pharmacy precepting.

Self Paced
4 Weeks
Causes of Human Disease: Exploring Cancer and Genetic Disease (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Causes of Human Disease: Exploring Cancer and Genetic Disease (FutureLearn)

Explore how the unravelling of genetic code has led to a deeper understanding of genetic diseases and cancer. It’s widely known that some diseases run in families. The discovery of the structure of DNA and the unravelling of the genetic code has led to a deeper understanding of such diseases. We now know more about the genetic basis of cancer and how cancer cells are formed and reproduce. On this course you’ll explore the structure of DNA, its processes and learn how genetic disease results from DNA alterations.

Self Paced
2 Weeks