Abstract

Dying unfairly in the long lists of transplants is the difficult current alternative of thousands of patients waiting for a future life opportunity. From the beginning of the fascinating era of organ transplantation, this cruel reality permanently censures our society. The paradigm of recovering life through the death of another human being is a difficult metaphor to be interpreted by people. We could consider that this symbolic image could be a reason why society would accept the terrible reality of committing a subconscious aggression against itself: ‘the unjust death of hundreds of patients’. The objective of this article is to analyse the possible causes of this crisis and propose a change in the strategy of current educational programs, given its statistical inertia to improve public behaviour with respect to organ donation. The main intention is to suggest the review of the global planning of donation and transplant education, seeking to achieve a clear public knowledge of the critical existential dilemma of our time: to recover health and life thanks to the transplantation of organs and tissues.