On Dec 20, 2024 the Students Forum of Madras School of Social Work organized a seminar on Organ Donation  for its members, and invited MOHAN Foundation to conduct the seminar.  This was an initiation of the Organ Donation Ambassador Ms Divya, a student of the school.  The speakers  were Dr Hemal Kanvinde and Ms Sujatha Suriyamoorthy of MOHAN Foundation.  Around 60 students attended the event. 

Dr Hemal started the session with an introduction to Organ and Tissue Donation. She spoke of the work of MOHAN Foundation.  She introduced the concepts of tissue, organ and whole body donation. She gave elaborate information on brain death, cardiac death and coma.  How and who and what can be donated was explained. The importance of a donor card and family discussion  was emphasised.  She touched upon the myths in society abut donation.  The session ended with a recipient story. 

The next session was conducted  by Mrs Sujatha who spoke on grief counseling and its importance to organ donation. She gave real life examples of donation she counseled and her experiences.  She gave an idea of the stages of grief and the need to be extremely patient and supportive to the family. 

The next session was about Protocol in Hospital during a deceased donation. Dr Hemal conducted this activity based learning . Dr Hemal made cards of nearly all the stakeholders and took the students through a 10 step protocol  with the involvement of all the stakeholders, like the ICU doctors, certification team, grief counselor, donor family and others.  Through this activity the students understood the complexity of the transplant coordination process. 

The questions and discussion after this were on - Law on Transplants and how it can be changed to improve donations,  the grief counselors self care post a donation, the  role of the state government in Transplantation. 

Around 15  students picked a donor card. MOHAN Foundation thanks Ambassador Ms Divya  and the Student's Form for organizing this educational event for the Social Work Forum.