FAQs

No. Income and celebrity status are not considered when determining who receives an organ. Also, it is a federal crime to buy or sell organs and tissues in the United States. Donor organs are matched to potential recipients by blood type, tissue type, size, medical urgency, time on waiting list and geographic location through a national computerized waiting list operated by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

No. While organ, eye and tissue donation involves saving lives in the real world, the entertainment industry often invents false situations and perpetuates misconceptions about donation by using dramatization and sensationalism. 

Register your decision in the Donor Registry by:
1. Saying “yes” to organ donation when you obtain or renew your driver’s license or state identification card
at the Circuit Court Clerk’s Office.
2. Going to RegisterMe.org.
3. Completing form in the Medical ID tab of your iPhone Health App.
Once you have registered your decision, it is important to discuss your wishes about donation with your family so that they are aware of the generous choice you have made.

Yes, the Kentucky Donor Registry ensures that a person’s desire to be a donor is honored after death. All recovery organizations are directed by law to inform the next of kin of the decision to donate and to work with the donor’s family to honor this wish. This eliminates the need for a family to make a major decision about donation during their time of grief when they may not know, or be able to recall clearly, what their loved one had wanted.

At any point in time, you can remove yourself from the Kentucky Donor Registry call Trust For Life or by going online.

No. When an individual registers, it’s treated like a will. Families cannot overturn your decision to donate if it’s possible and you are registered. Kentucky is a first person consent state.

Yes, you may join the Kentucky Donor Registry as long as you have a state identification card, driver’s license or permit—although parental authorization is not needed for individuals under 18, a parent may revoke the decision upon a minor’s death.

Once a person turns 18, the decision to say “yes” is considered a legal, advanced directive. You should still inform your family of your decision. Upon your death, the recovery organization will inform them of your
decision to be a donor and will involve them in the donation process, but will not ask them for authorization.

All deaths occur from cessation of cardiopulmonary (heart-lung) function or from the cessation of brain function. Brain death occurs when a person has an irreversible, catastrophic brain injury, which causes all brain activity to permanently stop. You can never recover from brain death. Brain damage means there are some portions of the brain still functioning, meaning that person is not brain dead. In brain death cases, the heart and lungs can continue to function if artificial-support machines are used.
However, these functions will cease when the machines are discontinued. The standards for determining that someone is brain dead are strict. After cardiac death, an individual has the potential to be an eye and tissue donor and, on occasion, an organ donor.

Organs that can be donated include: kidneys, heart, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine. Tissue that can be donated includes: heart valves, corneas, skin, bone, ligaments, tendons, fascia, veins and nerves.
One organ donor can save up to eight lives. One tissue donor can heal more than 75 lives.