*Purpose: This study aims to assess the attitudes of physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners in transplant and critical care towards Living Donation Prior to Withdrawal of Care (LD-PPW), defined as the recovery of a living donor organ prior to withdrawal of life-sustaining measures in a patient who does not meet criteria for brain death, but for whom medical care towards meaningful recovery has been deemed futile.

*Methods: A case scenario was administered via electronic survey through the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) mailing list. The case scenario involved a hypothetical LD-PPW donor (“Jason”), and participants rated their agreement with survey questions on a 5-point Likert scale regarding his eligibility to donate. Participant support of LD-PPW more broadly was queried, especially as it pertains to key ethical principles, and demographic information was gathered. Ultimately, 1,735 healthcare workers involved in provision of transplant services received the survey, with 187 total complete responses (10.8% response rate).

*Results: Compared to previously published data surveying public perception of LD-PPW, data gathered by this study suggests that LD-PPW would be met with similar levels of support from the professional community, with 71% and 77% of responding practitioners indicating support for LD-PPW due to principles of beneficence and autonomy respectively. 65% of participants felt confident in their ability to declare futility of care and 70% felt that LD-PPW should be added as an option when registering to become an organ donor (Figure 1).

*Conclusions: This study was initiated because donation after cardiac declaration of death does not satisfy the current need for organ donation and transplantation, as nearly half of all DCDD do not proceed to organ donation. LD-PPW has been proposed as an alternative procedure targeted at increasing the quality and quantity of transplantable organs while respecting the donor’s right to donate, though its implementation has been hindered by concerns over public and provider perception. This study revealed strong support for LD-PPW among healthcare practitioners, reaffirming previously published data of strong support within the public at large. Further research will assist execution of a formalized process for LD-PPW in the context of our current systems for organ donation.

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