For more information, contact:
Karen Senger, 918-561-1219 or karen.senger@okstate.edu
TULSA, Okla. — Stephanie Bagley, R.N., director of the Eastern Oklahoma office of LifeShare, shared the intricate process of organ donation and transplantation during the Colby Cassani Foundation Endowed Lecture Series Nov. 16 at the OSU Center for Health Sciences.
Bagley was this year’s featured speaker for the lecture series which was initiated eight years ago by OSU alumni Dr. John Cassani (’80) and his wife, Starla, in memory of their son Colby. The primary purpose of the lecture series is to educate first and second-year medical students about organ donation and transplantation.
Bagley discussed national and state statistics and laws related to organ donation and transplantation and explained the process of procuring organs from the time a potential donor is identified to the time surgeons place the organs in the recipient patient. In the United States, more than 93,500 people are currently waiting for organs. In Oklahoma, the number of people waiting is 586.
Starla Cassani told lecture attendees about her family’s first-hand experience with organ donation when they lost their 14-month old son Colby in an accident. He was put on life support, and then pronounced brain dead.
Being asked to donate Colby’s organs helped the couple deal with their grief. “It was the most amazing, wonderful thing to have someone ask us this,” Starla said. “By donating Colby’s organs, we could turn such an awful situation into something good that would help others.”
Colby’s kidneys, liver and heart were each donated to three separate recipients, who are all doing very well.
She told the medical students that it is important that they learn about organ donation and transplantation because it saves lives. She said she and her husband are glad OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine has made the Colby Cassani Endowed Lecture Series a permanent part of the curriculum for students.
